


Queen in the North

by diadelphous



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Explicit Language, F/M, Future Fic, Minor Character Death, Plotty, Romance, Somewhat Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:37:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diadelphous/pseuds/diadelphous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa has retaken Winterfell and been crowned Queen of the North, but the Others have found a way to cross the Wall and invade her newly acquired kingdom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted at ff.net.  
> Not GRRM, not making any money, et cetera

The armor was heavier than she expected, but less binding than the corsets and stays she wore with her formal gowns. It was designed for a man - for a boy, really, her advisor Geoffrey had told her, some squire not yet fully grown - and it sat awkwardly on her frame, mashing her breasts up against her chest and barely fitting over the curve of her hips.

"I don't know if this is going to work," Sansa said, twisting to get comfortable. "Why can't I wear one my gardening dresses? I see no difference -"

"In function, perhaps." Geoffrey gave a short little bow. "But the men are expecting - and forgive my bluntness - a  _king_. _"_

"A king can't wear a dress?" Sansa attempted to smile at him over the top of her shoulder, but the armor made it difficult to move. Geoffrey tittered, then scurried over to the table, where a helmet and sword and scabbard and gloves were laid out in a neat row. Sansa sighed, straightened her shoulders, and tried to quell the quaking in her stomach.

_There is nothing to be nervous about_ , she told herself. It was only one night, after all, to show her support for those men guarding the castle from the cold, and from the Others who prowled in it. The sun had shone for the last week, warming up the countryside; there had been no attacks for nearly a month.

And she doubted her advisors would let her go if there was any suggestion of danger.

Geoffrey returned and draped a cloak over her shoulders. Then he latched the scabbard around her waist. Sansa wrapped her hand around the sword's handle.

"A sword?" she asked. "You do realize I've no idea how to use it."

"Of course, your Grace. It's merely for show."

The sword felt awkward in Sansa's hand, but she pulled it out by a fraction, enough for a strip of blade to appear.

"Black!" she cried. "Oh, Geoffrey, please don't tell me you wasted an obsidian blade for  _show_."

"Of course not, your Grace. We painted it."

"You painted it?" Sansa let out a little choking laugh and scratched at the flat edge of the sword. Black flecks appeared on her fingernail. "That's rather a relief. I was afraid some poor squire was going without protection -" The thought sobered her, and she let the sword fall back into place.

"Yes, we wanted you to appear ready for battle." Geoffrey nodded. "As if you could slay Others at a moment's notice."

"No one in the North thinks I'm capable of slaying monsters."

"That isn't true, your Grace." Geoffrey smiled at her. "Although, admittedly, they don't imagine you doing your slaying  _literally_ , out in a battlefield."

Sansa laughed, but it was more out of nervousness than mirth. Geoffrey handed her the helmet, and after she took it from him she stared down at it for a long moment, unmoving. It gleamed in the firelight, although there was a dent at the crown that made her uneasy.

"Go on, your Grace," Geoffrey said. "We should be leaving soon. We want to arrive before nightfall."

"Of course," Sansa said softly, and she nestled the helmet over the web of braids her handmaiden had created that morning.

She wondered if men felt strength when they put on their armor and swords, the way she found strength in the woolen dresses she wore for working in the glass gardens and repairing the castle, or in the beautiful, impractical silk-and-fur gowns she wore when meeting with advisors and diplomats. The concept of equating armor with strength seemed strange to her, foreign - although she could remember a time when the sight of man in armor seemed to her an image of power and righteousness.

She didn't think that anymore.

"Your Grace," Geoffrey said impatiently, tapping his thigh. "I really don't want us to travel after dark."

"I know. I was just thinking."

"Practicing your speech?"

"Something like that." Sansa gave him her brightest smile, the same smile she planned to turn on the men guarding Winterfell from the horrors of the cold. It was a smile to melt ice, and some days, it felt like the only weapon against winter.

* * *

The sun was high overhead when they set out from Winterfell in a caravan of sleds pulled by snow-steeds whose antlers were wound with silvery-blue flowers from the glass gardens. Flowers dripped off the sides of the sleds as well, shedding petals across the snow as they sped north through the spindly woods.

Sansa sat as properly as she could in her bulky, unfamiliar armor. The sky was cloudless and a bright, pristine blue, the sun a disc of white heat that refracted off the metal of the armor and sparkled in the icicles hanging from the tree branches. Light danced everywhere. The world looked carved out of glass. Sansa had not been this far from the castle for nearly two years. It wasn't exactly safe inside its walls, Sansa knew that, but it was safer than the frozen open, and she had forgotten how beautiful the frozen open could be.

The wind rushing past the sleds rendered conversation impossible, and so in that roaring silence Sansa practiced what she meant to say to the men at the outpost. Aside from the sworn brothers, most of them were not bannermen, but wildlings with whom she had struck an accord when she reclaimed the land and her crown: in exchange for food and shelter, they provided protection from the Others.

It was no longer enough to depend on the services of the brave men at the Wall.

After the attack on Winterfell two years ago, the one that had claimed her husband and her child both, the one whose horrors had been profound enough to replace her adolescent nightmares, she had sent word south, to the new queen, and begged for an alliance - and for reinforcements. They had only arrived in the last few months, trickling up in starving, shivering bands. Sworn brothers, mostly, defenders of the Faith, and the assorted sellsword looking for gold. At first, Sansa had tried to greet each man individually, to thank him for his courage and devotion, but eventually the duties of the castle repairs overwhelmed her, and she sent Geoffrey to do it instead. He ensured that each traveller received a hot meal and night spent in a bed, in front of a fire, before sending them to the outpost.

She was making the trip today to preemptively show her gratitude; unrest hadn't started up yet, but Sansa wanted to speak to the men before they became weary. The armor had been Geoffrey's idea, of course, and Sansa could understand his reasoning. She was general as well as queen, and if she were to meet her troops, then she supposed she should look the part.

Still, that didn't mean she enjoyed the stiff, uncomfortable armor, although at least in the winter sun it kept her warm enough.

They arrived at the outpost in early afternoon, just as the sun was dropping into the treeline, casting long, dangerous shadows across the snow. The outpost was a ridge of rickety wood-and-stone buildings that grew a tiny bit longer with each arrival of new soldiers, although it still, at times, felt dreadfully small. Raging bonfires burned at short intervals between the buildings, throwing off heat and light and thick black smoke that marred the flawless spread of sky.

A member of her Queensguard helped Sansa down from the sled, and Geoffrey was waiting for her in the snow, wrapped in furs and wools. "They've prepared a meal for us," he told her, leading her toward the largest of the buildings. "You can give your speech before the sun sets, and then we'll have time to eat."

Sansa nodded, feeling grim. Her armor clanked as she walked, echoing against the clanking of her guardsman, the clanking of the men making their way into the dinner hall. She knew the men were watching her, and she kept her back straight and her head high. No one jeered or shouted insults, but no one cheered her arrival, either.

Her guards led her into the dining hall. The long low benches were covered, Sansa noticed, more in flagons of wine than platters of food. The hum of men's voices died away when she entered: no one had bothered to announce her, because there was no need. A woman dressed in armor on the dangerous edge of civilization - that was announcement enough.

"This way, your Grace," murmured Geoffrey, and Sansa offered her arm by rote, keeping her eyes on the gaunt, weatherworn faces of the men staring back at her. Most of them were cowled in the brown robes of the sworn brothers, as she expected, but they still stared at her with a sullenness she would not have expected from priests.

Geoffrey led her to the front of the dining hall. The silence in the room burned at her ears; she could feel her heart thumping in every part of her body. Speeches didn't normally make her so nervous, but something about being in  _their_ space and wearing  _their_ armor - she felt like a fraud, like she had no right to speak to them.

A soldier helped her onto the dais, and she turned to face the men. Torches burned along the walls. Two flickered directly behind her head, their heat warming her helmet until she felt sweat drip down the back of her neck.

For a moment, she lost her words.

Behind a cupped hand, Geoffrey whispered, "Winterfell thanks you."

And like that, the speech appealed wholesale in Sansa's thoughts. "Winterfell thanks you," she said, and her voice rang out as clear and lovely as a song. "And the North thanks you, for your bravery and courage in this time of darkness. I will not even pretend to understand the travails you face with each passing night, but know that I am grateful for every step you take into the cold, for every drawn sword and cloud of frosted breath."

Sansa could hardly see the men at this point; the crowd bled into the smoky, orange haze of the firelight. She was aware of a few voices muttering in agreement, and she raised the volume of her voice at the allotted times, gestured in the practiced places. The speech's crescendo rattled deep in her bones. Like most such speeches, it didn't really  _say_ much of anything, but Sansa had learned long ago how to put on a performance.

"So those of you who leave the safety of the fires tonight, I walk with you in spirit. And those who leave the safety of the fires on the next, and the next - know that you will always be beloved by the North."

And then she lifted her helmet away from her head - a lovely burst of coolness! - and gave them her bright, dazzling smile.

For two heartbeats the room was utterly silent.

Then it erupted into noise, applause and shouts of joy and the heavy wooden rattle of wine cups slamming against the table. Sansa took in a deep breath.

"I think that went very well, your Grace." Geoffrey appeared at her side, took her arm, and led her off the dais. "The Commander set up a table for you here. You can eat, and then we'll show you to your quarters for the night."

The food was already laid out when Sansa sat down - a thick brown stew and hunks of black bread. Sansa hardly tasted her meal, as she was still dizzy from giving her speech, but she ate it quickly. One of the guardsmen brought her a bottle of sour red wine, bowing as he set it on the table. Geoffrey smiled apologetically when he opened it.

"Not the highest quality, I'm afraid."

"As if they need to care about drinking the finest Dornish gold here." Sansa took a long drink of wine. The taste was a jolt of memory: it drew her back seven years into the past, when she had been held captive at King's Landing, during the start of the war - it had still been summer then, and another year or so would pass before the winter descended over Westeros and rendered the wars of men obsolete. She had known the smell, then, more so than the taste. She had only tasted it once, after all, in a room filled with green light.

Sansa took another drink. Already the initial rush of recollection was gone; the more she drank, the more the wine became a sensation of the present, not the past.

The realization made her sad.

"Your Grace? Are you all right?" Geoffrey leaned in close to her. "You seem dazed."

"Yes," Sansa said, staring distractedly out at the rowdy tables of men. Her thoughts were still in King's Landing, in its darkened, shadowy hallways. Not that she realized it at the time, but she had always felt safest when those hallways were drenched in night, when all the day's cruelties were asleep. "Yes, I'm fine."

"I thought the wine might be going to your head."

"It was." Sansa set her cup down, tried to pull herself out of the fog of the past. "A bit stronger than what I'm used to."

"Well, of course, your Grace. The promise of drunkenness is one of the only ways to convince men to come fight for us." His eyes glittered with teasing.

Sansa laughed. "Men are easily fooled, it seems."

"You'll notice there aren't any women here. Except for your Grace, of course."

"Yes," Sansa said, "and I'm sure that's because of the choice of wine."

Geoffrey laughed, and Sansa gestured for her guards to step over to her table. "I think I'd like to see my quarters now. I'm feeling - a bit drawn out."

"Of course, your Grace."

The filed out of the dining hall, Sansa flanked on either side by guards, Geoffrey leading the way. Outside, twilight had fallen, the sky a deep, velvety purple, the snow silvery in the moonlight. Sansa's breath condensed into white steam.

"It's colder," she said.

"Do you think so, your Grace?" Geoffrey turned to her. "It's always colder at night."

"That isn't want I meant." Sansa wished she was out of this accursed armor so she could wrap her arms around herself. Her favorite fur cloak should be waiting for her in her sleeping quarters, and she had every intention of stripping out of the armor and bundling herself in it. "I mean - the air feels different. Sharper somehow."

"I fear that might be the wine speaking, your Grace."

Sansa frowned. "I'm not drunk, Geoffrey."

"Of course not, your Grace." Geoffrey bowed graciously. "But I don't want you to work yourself into fright. You're perfectly safe here."

Sansa looked out at the fire burning in the darkness. She could hardly feel their warmth.

"Cold is cold," Geoffrey said. "You're used to the heated walls of Winterfell. Come, come, let's see you to your quarters." He took her by the arm again, and this time Sansa allowed him. But she worried: Geoffrey knew as well as she that the cold wasn't always the same. Sometimes the cold was merely the cold, certainly - but other times, it brought nightmares.

He was lying to her, trying to reassure her. It did not work.

* * *

Her quarters were located in a small stone hut near the largest of the fires, guarded by a pair of wildlings in ill-fitting armor. Geoffrey's eyes widened when he saw them.

"My apologies, your Grace, I asked  _specifically_  for sworn brothers when I arranged -"

"It's fine." Sansa only wanted out of the cold. In the short walk from the dining hall, the cold had worked its way under her skin. It had turned her blood to ice water.

And Geoffrey kept chattering along, pretending everything was fine.

But Sansa knew how to look for troubles. She had seen the worried expressions on the men running the outpost, the way the looked at her with mixture of anxiety and fear and anger. They might have applauded her speech, but that was before the cold settled over the outpost like a layer of ice.

Now they regarded her as if her appearance were an old whispered curse.

One of the wildlings pushed the door open for her. Ice broke off the frame and shattered on the stone walkway. Sansa stepped inside and allowed Geoffrey to follow her since she would never be able to remove the armor on her own and she couldn't bear the thought of bringing her handmaiden this far north.

She immediately took off the heavy, awkward gloves and tossed them aside with a clank.

The room was cramped but warm: the fire cast high, golden-edged shadows on all the walls. Her fur cloak was draped across the bed, just as she had expected, along with a thick winter-wool gown and a pair of ermine gloves, but her other trunk hadn't arrived yet.

"I know it's not Winterfell -" Geoffrey began.

"It's perfectly acceptable." Sansa sighed, took off her helmet, tossed it on the nearby table. "Honestly, I just want out of this armor. And where's Reynard with my books? You did ask him to fetch them when we arrived, didn't you?" Her heart beat quickened. She didn't like thinking of any of her Queensguard being delayed in the dark and the cold. "Why isn't -"

"Forgive me, your Grace, but I sent him to the sleds as we were leaving the dining hall. I didn't think to ask him when we arrived." He smiled. "It will take him a bit longer, having to drag the trunk through the snow."

"Why did you do that, Geoffrey? Why didn't he bring it with my clothes?"

"Well, I didn't know if you would need the books, your Grace. I thought you might wish to stay in the dining hall -"

"They have work to do," Sansa said.  _And so do I, back at Winterfell._  She pushed the thought aside. Would this vicious cold feel any more natural if she were tucked away behind Winterfell's walls? Of course it wouldn't. She remembered the first time she felt cold like this - cold like the kiss of death. She  _remembered_.

Sansa took a deep breath.

"Would you like me to go check on him?"

"No!" Sansa's voice bounced off the walls, startling herself, startling Geoffrey, who blinked at her with concern. "No," she said again, softer this time. "I need your help removing the breastplate."

"Of course, your Grace." Geoffrey stepped forward, and Sansa turned toward the fire, her heart still hammering painfully inside her chest. She stared at the flames. The smell of smoke was a strange sort of comfort.

Outside, a man screamed.

Sansa jerked away from Geoffrey, all her senses alert. The fire sputtered in the hearth.

"I'm sure it was nothing," Geoffrey said, but Sansa heard the shiver in his voice, the halt of hesitation. "I'm sure someone drank too much at the -"

Another scream, louder this time, and closer. The door slammed opened and Sansa gave a shout and cowered back, but it was only one of the wildling guards, his sword drawn, his face wild with fear.

"The lady," he said, "should run."

"You will address her as your Grace," said Geoffrey.

"Shut up!" Sansa said, forgetting herself in her terror. "It's them, isn't it? The cold - I could feel it."

The wilding didn't answer, only bounded out of the room, leaving the door hanging open. The sounds of battle poured into the room, men screaming and shouting. A cold wind followed, then a scatter of ice that melted and steamed in the heat of the fire. The fire - the fire kept  _them_  away, but only if it was large enough, hot enough. A hearth fire wouldn't do - Sansa remembered.

"We have to get to the bonfires," Sansa gasped. She grabbed Geoffrey by the arm and pulled him toward the door.

"Your Grace, we can't go outside. The battle - no one expects you to really fight."

"We have to get to the fires!" Sansa pushed him through the door. "That's the safest pla -"

In the doorway, Sansa froze. The cold blasted across her bare face, and the smell of blood hung on the air, and in the darkness, she saw only shapes, silhouettes bleeding and blurring together.

And the fires -

The fires were out -

All her hope shattered like ice.

And then she heard someone say her name. Her given name,  _Sansa_  - not saying, no. Screaming.

"Geoffrey!" Sansa whipped her head around in terror, then covered her mouth with her stiff, freezing bare hands and screamed. He was gone. He had been ripped away from her and she hadn't even noticed.

In a daze, she followed his voice, and for a moment the moonlight was bright enough that she saw him dragged across the landscape by tall thin creature that glowed like nighttime snow. The creature lifted its head and it eyes were the cold cold blue that had haunted her for the last two years.

Sansa screamed.

"Run!" Geoffrey shouted, his voice strangled.

Sansa ran.

She ran in the direction of the dining hall, in the direction of the stables. But the night was dark without the light from the fires, too dark, and swords sliced through the cold night air, and men screamed and died. At one point something hot and sticky splattered across the side of Sansa's face, but she pressed back her revulsion and ran as fast as she could in her heavy clanking armor.

She heard a hissing like the northern wind.

Sansa shrieked with fear and forced herself to look over her shoulder, where she found a pale thin face looking back at her, eyes bright as the moon. In one unthinking motion she pulled her sword out of its scabbard and swung it in a wide arc: but the Other met it a thin shard of glass, and her sword shattered into a million pieces.

_It wouldn't have worked anyway_ , she thought stupidly,  _We only painted it black._ And then, before a flood of desperation could seize her, she ran. She ran and she knew the creature was chasing her. She could feel its cold breath on the back of her neck. Tears stung hot at the corners of her eyes, blurring and smearing the surrounding darkness until she couldn't tell snow from sky.

Her foot caught on something in the ground, something thick and soft, and she tipped forward and crashed into the snow. The cold burned her bare hands, but she scrambled over her obstacle -  _Oh gods it's a man a man a dead man_ \- and then she saw the light of those blue eyes and then she saw, in the white half-frozen hand of the dead man, a short fat obsidian dagger.

Sansa didn't think. She only grabbed the blade and shoved it up, up into the Other leaning over her, up under his strange moonlight armor -

And then she was drenched by water so cold she thought at first that she had died. The Other was gone, leaving in its wake only a patch of winter sky, the stars as bright and hard as diamonds.

Sansa crawled backward over the snow, her teeth chattering, her lips and fingers numb. Somehow she still held the dagger, and she clenched it so tightly that it felt like an extension of herself. Slowly, the world came back to her: screaming and shadows, bonfires smoldering into piles of grey ash. Sansa gasped and forced herself up to standing. Her hair was turning into ice. She realized she couldn't feel her fingers - only the obsidian blade, jutting out of her arm, a new hand that she had grown in the cold.

She ran.

This time, she did not run to the stables. She did not run anywhere. She had lost her sense of direction in the dark, and she ran toward the trees, because there, at least, the shadows weren't moving. The battle sounds fell away until she only heard her breath, ragged and rattling inside her chest.

And then she wasn't running anymore.

Sansa was jerked to a stop, stumbling. She screamed: something had grabbed hold of her arm. She yanked against it but it did not let go, and she screamed again, because how was it that she could kill the monster that had killed her husband and  _survive_ only to face another and  _die._

She would not die. She would  _not._

Sansa twisted around, ignoring the pain as her arm didn't twist with her, and shoved the blade into her attacker. Except it didn't go  _in._ It bounced off the armor and into the snow. And it was only then that Sansa realized the armor wasn't reflecting the moonlight, and that her attacker was tall but not thin, and that he held a sword made of black stone in his free hand.

"The little bird thinks she can kill," he said, in a voice like ashes scraped out of a hearth.

All the air left Sansa's body. In the sudden stillness of the woods, the battle was a thousand miles away. She forgot her frozen fingers and her frozen hair. She forgot, for a moment, her fear. She only looked up and up until the moonlight caught a face she had not seen for seven years.

"You," she gasped.

And then, like a proper lady, she fainted.


	2. Chapter 2

When Sansa awoke, trees and snow marched beside her like soldiers, and the air was cold cold cold and for a moment she wondered why she wasn't in her bed chambers, curled up underneath a pile of furs and quilted blankets, a fire burning in the hearth, the walls rushing with the heat of the springs.

Then she remembered.

"Put me down!" she shrieked, hearing in her voice the child she had been the last time Sandor saved her from violence. "Put me down at once!"

"Keep your mouth shut, girl."

Sansa squirmed against him, but her armor was stiff and her body ached from the cold, and Sandor's grip held her tightly in place. He had thrown her over his shoulder, and she could see the forest disappearing into darkness behind them. She jostled against him in an awkward, uneven way, and it took her a few seconds to realize he was limping.

"You're hurt!" she said. "You don't have to car -"

"I said to keep your mouth shut!" Sandor twisted her off his shoulder and dropped her unceremoniously in the snow. The cold stunned her. He leaned down, his face close. Time had softened her memory of his features, and even in the shadows his scars were gruesome and twisted and painful to look at, although she did look at them. At him.

"You think the White Walkers don't have ears? That they can't hear your twittering? Keep bloody quiet until we've found shelter."

When he spoke, his mouth curled up into a sneer. She had forgotten that as well.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Can you walk?"

She nodded, but when she tried to push herself up to standing she found herself stuck in her armor. Sandor sighed, grabbed her by the upper arm, and pulled her up.

"Move," he hissed, shoving her forward.

Trudging through the snow was harder than she expected. The drifts came halfway up her calves, and every step sent a clamor of clanks and rattles echoing out into the forest. How was it that Sandor could slip so silently through the night, even as he jerked forward, his left footprint a smear in the snow? He didn't seem hurt, or bleeding -

"We should build a fire," she whispered. The stillness of the forest unnerved her, as if it was lying in wait. "They're afraid of fire -"

"You don't think I bloody well know that?" Sandor glared at her, his eyes glittering fiercely in the moonlight. "How hard is it for the little bird to stop singing?"

"I'm not -" Sansa stopped herself.

Sandor looked away, his eyes moving across the frozen forest. "This way," he said, pushing her forward, his voice more condensation than sound. " _Move_."

Sansa did as she asked, her heart pounding again. She kept waiting for the shadows to form into silhouettes, for long thin apparitions to step out of the snow and moonlight. But nothing happened. The only sign that the forest was alive at all was the sound of her breath and the movement of Sandor's halted gait.

But her heart still pounded and she found herself pressing close to Sandor. He didn't seem to notice, just kept trudging through the snow. He used to frighten her, and even now she felt a vague anxiety around him, although it wasn't fear, exactly. All her fear was directed at the woods. She was waiting for the stillness to shatter. Like glass, like ice, like metal touched by the Other's crystalline swords.

"Bloody hell, finally," Sandor muttered beside her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her through the snow. Sansa hardly had time to react before they were standing inside the entrance of squat, shallow cave.

"Wait here," Sandor said. "I'm going to collect wood for the fire."

"You want to leave me here?" Sansa said. When Sandor glowered at her, she added, "I mean, you're hurt. Let me. You can stay here and rest."

"I'm not hurt. Stay here." He reached into his cloak and pulled out the obsidian dagger Sansa had used earlier. He dropped it in the dirt beside her. "It works better if you don't stab at the breastplate."

He disappeared back out in the snow.

 _He left me_ , Sansa thought.  _I'm the Queen of Winterfell and he_ left  _me_. What if he didn't come back? What if he left her here as some sort of - sacrifice?

Except she knew he would never do that.  _I could keep you safe_ , he'd said to her, a long time ago. The world had been covered in fire then, not ice, but surely he would still adhere to his word, all these years later. Sansa shivered, from the cold and from her terror. She slumped down against the cave's wall, armored legs splayed out awkwardly in front of her. He would come back. He was an honorable man, in his way. One of the most honorable she had ever known.

Of course, it was much easier to think that about him when he wasn't there.

The time passed slowly, and Sansa shivered in her armor and tried to keep her thoughts blank, the way she had when she was prisoner at King's Landing. Most of her experiences there she had locked away inside herself. She had taught herself to forget. But even though the frozen cave and the snow-covered forest were nothing like the Red Keep, she still felt as if she had been plunged seven years back in time. She wasn't a queen any longer, but a frightened child, fatherless and lost, who knew nothing about the ways of the world.

And she was strangely drowsy, her eyelids drooping, dreams coming to the fore -

Footsteps crunched on the snow.

Sansa jerked up. A shadow appeared in the cave's entrance, and then a shower of tree branches clattered against the stone floor. Sandor ducked into the cave and spread the branches in front of the opening.

"Get me a pair of rocks, girl," he said. "Small ones."

Sansa hesitated, more out of the bewilderment of her situation than anything else. Sandor looked over his shoulder at her, his damp hair sticking to his scars. "Hurry!" he said. "I don't imagine the North wants to see their pretty little queen coming after them as a walking corpse."

Sansa blinked at him, then pushed herself up against the cave's wall, her limbs shaking and trembling. She found a pair of long, narrow stones scattered across the ground and handed them to him. He didn't bother to thank her, just reached into his cloak and pulled out a little cloth pouch which was, Sansa knew, filled with black powder the maesters had developed - it helped even damp wood catch flame, so that the soldiers guarding the North would never be caught without fire.

Sandor sprinkled the powder over the wood, then crouched down, his spine hunched over. A tiny metallic  _snick snick snick_ rang out through the cave _._ Sansa watched him, her breath hovering in her throat, and every now and then her eyes flicked away from Sandor and into the forest stretched out beyond him.

 _Hurry_ , she thought.

Sandor flinched back a little, and Sansa smelled smoke. A thin line of yellow light grew up along the side of the cave's wall. Sandor shuffled deeper into the cave. The branches smoldered and smoked, flames eating up the darkness.

"There," Sandor said. "Should be enough to keep them away." He glanced at Sansa. "Get up close to the fire."

Sansa blinked at him.

"Or freeze to death, if you wish." Sandor leaned up against the cave wall and lowered himself, slowly, jutting out his left leg as he did so.

"Freeze to death?" Sansa asked.

"Aye, I can see the start of it in your face there." He seemed oddly unconcerned. "The fire'll warm you up. Go on."

Sansa slid over to the fire. It had grown tall and vivid, the tops of the flames almost-but-not quite licking the roof of the cave, and it gave off a tremendous heat. She sat beside it, unspeaking, sometimes working up the nerve to glance over at Sandor, who was sometimes staring back.

After a time passed, Sansa asked, "Why did the fires go out at the outpost?" It was the last question she wanted to ask, but in their situation it seemed the most polite, the only one that did not involve asking Sandor anything about himself.

"Don't know." He shifted, turned toward her. "Wasn't paying attention to the fires."

"What were you paying attention to?"

He caught her gaze, his dark eyes reflecting the fire's light. In the eerie, glowing shadows he seemed a creature of myth, unearthly and powerful.

"You look ridiculous in that armor," he said.

Sansa blushed and looked down. "It was Geoffrey's idea. He wanted me to look -" she stopped. Blood rushed into her head. "Oh, Geoffrey. He's - I saw him dragged off." She closed her eyes. She had forced the battle out of her mind until now - a battle. She had been in a battle. The thought made he want to laugh and cry at the same.

Sandor didn't say anything, just stared at her. She looked away and watched the light moving like liquid across the wall. "I should have saved him," she whispered.

"And what would you have done?" Sandor asked. "You ever even hold a sword before?"

Sansa looked at him again, and for a moment she was herself, her grown self, again. "Yes."

He snorted and shook his head. "I don't mean for knighting, girl."

"Neither do I. And don't call me girl."

"Why the bloody fuck not? It's what you are."

"No, it isn't." Sansa gathered herself up, straightening her spine and her shoulders. The warmth of the fire had renewed her. "I'm a woman grown. Just because you remember me as some scared child -"

"It's not really a matter of  _remembering_."

"-Doesn't mean I am one anymore." A white hot dot of anger appeared behind Sansa's eyes. "I'm responsible for the lives of thousands of people."

"So was Joffrey."

"Don't you dare compare me to him."

And Sandor jerked up his head, hair falling across his face, eyes glittering. "I wasn't, girl."

"I told you, I'm not a girl!" Her voice bounced off the walls of the cave. The spot of rage flushed through her a body, a surge of indignation that momentarily quelled her fear. "I'm the Queen in the North! I watched my husband ripped into pieces, screaming, when the Others attacked the castle. That was the night I held a sword. Obsidian, just like yours." Tears formed at the edges of her eyes but didn't fall. "Three days later I lost the child I was carrying. That was two years ago, and I did not let it destroy me. That attack is the reason this outpost is here. I ordered it built, I arranged for the alliances to stock it with soldiers. And I did it  _alone_."

Sansa sucked in a deep breath. Sandor stared at her unblinking.

"I am not a child," she said.

Sandor didn't react at first. He merely regarded her in the flickering firelight, his scars shifting with the shadows.

Then he roared with laughter.

Sansa felt suddenly very small and fragile, as if she had shrunk down to a porcelain doll.

"You've learned to talk like a queen, at any rate," he said. "I'll give you that. The words are just as empty, but at least you aren't repeating what they tell you to say." His laughter trailed off. "Just like your speech this afternoon."

"My words weren't empty," Sansa said, flushing with anger. "And I don't see how you can mock the outpost when you came here."

His expression changed - flickered, and not because of the light. He turned away from her, but Sansa was adept at reading the expressions of those she spoke to, and she saw it, a softening of his features. A - gentleness. She knew he was capable of it.

"Why  _did_  you come here?" she asked softly.

Sandor didn't look at her, only shifted his body so that he was lying on his side against the slant of the wall. "You should get some sleep," he growled. "I don't plan on carrying you back to Winterfell tomorrow."

Sansa watched him, waiting for him to say more, but he stayed silent, and eventually his breathing turned deep and even. Sansa curled up as best she could next to the fire, but she couldn't sleep either. Her nerves were too frayed from the fight - she hadn't lied to Sandor about holding the obsidian sword during the attack on Winterfell, but the truth was she had only held it for a moment or two, and it had been far too heavy for her to swing or even, really, to lift. She had been frozen with fear, completely certain that she would die - but then the guards had swarmed into the room, and one of them had taken the sword away from her and another had pulled her out of the bed chamber and down to the bonfire burning in the courtyard, the bonfire that had eventually spread and burned away half the work she and Harry had done on repairing the castle from the damages wrought during the war.

Maybe Sandor was right. Maybe her words were empty. After all, hadn't she had thought the same thing about her speech to the men of the outpost? That it didn't say much of anything - even when she tried to play at being a king, Sansa remained a queen, her power wound up in her loveliness.

Sansa rolled over onto her side. Sandor was a lump in the darkness, sleeping steadily. She wondered what it was like for him, to lock himself in a cave behind a wall of fire. She remembered his fear the night of Blackwater Bay. She remembered how she had tasted it on his kiss, like smoke.

Sansa wondered what could possibly compel a man, even a man like Sandor, to spend his days in a place where his greatest and only fear was also his biggest protection.


	3. Chapter 3

They set out at daybreak the next morning, smothering the fire with rocks and dirt. Pale sunlight peeked through the trees, and although the air was cold, it lacked the deathly frigidity of the air the night before.

Of course, it was easy to forget the threat of the Others in the daylight. Too easy, sometimes.

"Put this on," Sandor told her after the fire had been reduced to ashes and swirls of grey smoke. He shoved a ball of thick brown cloth at her. Sansa took it, let it unfurl. A pair of gloves fell to the ground. The cloth was a cloak.

"You had this with you?"

"Just put it on."

Sansa did as he said. The fire had provided plenty of warmth in the night, but she knew that only a fool would walk through the snow with bare hands and a bare head.

Still, she wondered why he'd brought a spare cloak and gloves out into a battle with the Others.

Sandor squinted up at the sky when they emerged from the cave, then frowned and limped forward, staring down at the snow. Sansa trailed behind him, her armor clanking and creaking. She'd finally managed to fall asleep last night, but she had woken with aches in every part of her body.

"This way," Sandor said, pointing off to the left.

"How do you know?"

Sandor glared at her. "You doubt me, little bird?"

"No, I just -"

"If your  _Grace_ would like to lead the way, I'm sure we'd wind up at the Wall soon enough."

"I was only curious," Sansa said.

Sandor grunted and plunged forward into the snow. Sansa simmered for a moment ( _Why does he still treat me as he did in King's Landing?_ ) and then followed - which was when she noticed the crusty patterns in the snow. Their footprints, she realized, from the night before. Of course. No snow had fallen last night.

"Oh," Sansa said.

Sandor glanced at her, didn't say anything.

"That's very clever of you," she said, pointing at the tracks.

"It's not cleverness," Sandor said. "It's common sense. Not something required of queens."

Sansa didn't bother to answer.

She stared at the broad expanse of Sandor's cloaked back as she walked, her thoughts shrouded in a haze of exhaustion and hunger. Something about his cloak struck her as familiar, but she couldn't place where that familiarity came from - her surroundings were too indistinct right now. The forest was as beautiful as it had been yesterday, everything sparking and glinting in the snow, but it felt fake, like the stage for a mummer's show. In truth, yesterday afternoon seemed to belong to someone else: another Sansa, naive, the child Sandor thought she was.

Sansa remembered the fugue of the months after she fled King's Landing, when she had lost track of herself, when  _Sansa Stark_  had become a separate person.

At least this time, she was with Sandor.

The thought was a comfort, more of a comfort than she would have expected.

They walked for a long time. Sansa memorized the lines Sandor's back, memorized the way his cloak draped over his wide shoulders and dragged along the ground on his left side, dipping with his limp. His cloak. Something about his cloak -

The realization struck Sansa like a fist. Sandor's cloak - it was the rough brown cloak of a sworn brother.

"You're a septon!" Sansa cried out before she could stop herself.

Sandor did not stop walking. He did not turn to look at her. "I'm a gravedigger," he said, his voice harsh in the damp cold. "Do you think that's holy?"

"You're wearing the cloak -"

"Yes, little bird, I'm wearing the cloak." Now he did stop, so abruptly that Sansa ran to him just as he turned to face her. She slammed into his chest and stumbled back, dizzy. He didn't move to help right her. "Who else do you think would take me after I deserted?"

_I would_. The thought came to her unbidden. A sudden heat rose in her cheeks, and Sandor stared at her, his gaze colder than the air.

"I'm sorry," she stammered, and once again she felt as if she had regressed backwards through the time, that they were standing not in the glittering forest but in the darkened halls of the Red Keep. "I only - "

"Don't apologize to me," Sandor growled, and he turned and plunged forward through the snow. Sansa's thoughts weighed her down, and she had to force herself to move forward. He was a sworn brother. Maybe not a proper septon, no, she had blurted that without thinking - but a holy man all the same. A gravedigger. Of course a gravedigger was holy. Holier still here in the North, where the gravediggers burned the bodies of the dead to keep them from coming back as enemies.

They walked on. At one point, Sansa realized they were no longer following the footprints, and that they should have reached the outpost by now.

"Where are we going?" Sansa asked, driven more by a peculiar desire to hear his voice in the muffled silence of the forest than the need for an answer.

"Winterfell."

"Winterfell! But that's too far! The outpost -"

"You think that outpost is still there?"

Sansa frowned, a chill working its way into her body.

"Do you?" she asked cautiously.

"I don't know." Sandor looked at her. His eyes seemed to burn into her skin. "Besides, we went south through the woods last night. Winterfell's not as far as you're thinking."

"Will we make it before nightfall?"

"I doubt it."

A pause. All around them, the ice chimed.

"We'll build another fire," Sandor said. "Once the sun sets. I know a trick. I've walked through these woods before." Spots of light danced across his features, refracting from the long, thin icicles that hung from the tree branches. "Any other questions?" he snapped.

"Yes," Sansa said. "Do you have any food?"

He didn't answer right away. Sansa began to think he had no intention of doing so at all.

Then he said, "I can get you some."

"Oh," Sansa said. "If it would be too much trouble -"

"Trouble?" Sandor laughed. "We're walking unprotected through the northern bloody woods. Your precious outpost is most likely destroyed. We're already in trouble. Killing some starving winter rabbit isn't going to add to it."

They walked on. They ate snow for water, and although it made Sansa shiver, walking warmed her up again. The cloak Sandor had given her was made of some dark rough wool that scratched at her hair, and the gloves were for hands far larger than hers. But while Sansa was exhausted and hungry and frightened, at least she wasn't  _overly_  cold.

When the sun was directly overhead, Sandor grabbed Sansa by the arm, pulling her to stop. "Wait here," he hissed, "And don't fucking talk."

His hand slipped away from her and then he disappeared off into the trees.

Terror struck at Sansa's heart, powerful enough that she didn't even think to be angry with him. What was wrong? It couldn't be the Others, they never came out in the sun - unless the maesters were wrong, and there was no escape -

A shout of triumph echoed out of the woods, and a few moments later, Sandor emerged, a limp snow fox dangling from his hand.

"You did what I told you," he said as he walked up to Sansa. "That's the little bird I remember."

"I thought we were in danger."

Sandor shook his head. "No danger, but if you'd made too much noise it would have scared off our food." He shook the snow fox, flinging drops of blood onto the snow. Then he brushed past her.

"Aren't we going to eat it?" Sansa called out after him.

"I'm not wasting fire on daylight. Hurry up."

Sansa's heart fell. She had taken to daydreaming about meals at Winterfell: the roasted boars, surrounded by vegetables from the glass gardens, the steaming hot tea steeped from flowers she cultivated herself. They weren't feasts, but at least she never starved. At least she never felt that aching hunger she felt now.

They walked on.

Sunset came early, as Sansa knew it would. When the sky streaked with gold and pink and red, Sandor cursed and said, "Get wood, as much wood as you can carry."

Sansa stopped. They were still in the forest, the trees tall and thin and black in the light of the setting sun. Sandor pointed at a place where the trees were sparser. "Bring the wood there," he said. "I'll clear out the snow. And  _hurry._ "

Sansa nodded. She was cold and shaking with anxiety about the coming night, but part of her felt vaguely pleased that Sandor trusted her enough to collect kindling for the fire. It was a silly thought, but it made her feel warm inside, and that was enough reason to treasure it.

Despite her exhaustion, Sansa collected the wood quickly, cheered by the thought of having something to do. When she returned to the clearing, Sandor was hunched over the snow, scooping it out with his gloved hands.

"Lay it down anyplace I've cleared," he said without looking up. "We need to build a ring."

Of course. A ring of fire, with the two of them inside. That, Sansa thought, really was a clever.

_And frightening, for him_.

She dropped the sticks in the path Sandor had cleared, and for a while, they worked together in silence. If it weren't for the threat of nightfall, the threat of the Others, it would have put Sansa in mind of working in the glass gardens with the castle gardeners, clearing out the weeds that snuck their way in, gathering up rutabagas and spinach and bright yellow squash.

It would have been - comfortable.

They finished just as the first stars were twinkling on overhead. Sandor produced his pouch of black powder and the two stones from the cave. Sansa stood in the center of the ring and watched as he started the fires, his large rough hands working deftly with the stones. When he finished, he turned around and caught her eye, his expression hard. Sansa flushed and looked away. She expected him to laugh, but he didn't.

"Don't burn yourself," he told her. "We wouldn't want your pretty face to look like mine."

Sansa didn't say anything. The fires flared around them, sputtering and throwing off trails of golden light that landed, sizzling, in the snow. The ring was large enough that when Sansa stood in its center the heat was palpable but not uncomfortable, and she cleared out a section of snow and settled herself on the damp, frozen ground. Another night sleeping in the armor, another night without the comfort of a bed.

Sandor knelt down and cleaned the snow fox. Its blood was bright against the snow, an impossible red that reminded Sansa of fabrics she had seen in the south, in that terrible year when Sandor had protected her.

_I should thank him_ , she thought idly, watching him cut the snow fox into glistening strips of meat. She remembered the last time she had thanked him for protecting her - he'd turned on her, tried his best to frighten her. Of course, she was not so easily frightened now, and Sandor was a sworn brother. Although he did not seem so different. The change, Sansa decided, was mostly in herself.

Sandor speared the meat on the tip of his sword and rested it on the edges of the fire. The smell of roasting meat permeated the air immediately, and Sansa's mouth watered and a dull ache started at the back of her throat, and it took all her will power not to rip the meat from the sword and eat it half raw.

Sandor sat beside her, in the center of the ring, the furthest point from any of the flames.

"Thank you," Sansa said, her voice small compared to the fire's roar.

"For what?"

"For taking me back to Winterfell."

Sandor grunted. "Thought you knew how to use a sword now."

"I only said that I held a sword."

"You managed to escape the White Walkers on your own." Sandor reached over and turned the sword. Another burst of the scent of roasted meat. "Though you didn't seem to have much of a bloody thought past that." He laughed, a short, harsh laugh, a laugh she remembered.

"Why do you call them the White Walkers?"

"That's what they call them at the outpost." He looked at her. "Changing the subject? Don't want to talk about the fighting? Not so strong as you pretend."

"I killed one," Sansa shot back.

Sansa saw the shock register in Sandor's face before he threw back his head and laughed. "Did you now?"

"I shoved my knife - that one, the one you stole from me -" And here she pointed at the obsidian blade he had used to clean the snow fox - "I shoved it into - into one of them, and it turned to ice water -"

Sandor stared at her. He didn't laugh, he didn't mock, but his mouth twitched and his eyes glittered and the muscles around his jaw were clenched.

"So that's why you were covered in ice," he said, after a time.

Sansa didn't answer.

"Oh, little bird," he said, and this time his voice was soft, almost gentle, and he turned away from her to tend to the meat.

Sansa wished she could draw her knees to her chest and curl into a ball, tucked away like a snail, but in the armor it was impossible. Sandor sat down at her side and laid the sword across his lap. The meat steamed in the cold.

"Eat," he said gruffly.

Sansa didn't answer, only grabbed a piece of meat. She could feel the heat of it through her gloves, and she had to stop herself from shoving the entire hunk into her mouth.  _Eat like a lady_ , she reminded herself, but she didn't bother to listen to her own advice, and she tore into the meat, feeling rather like an animal. It melted on her tongue, and although the meat was stringy and lean and tasted of the wild, it was the best meal Sansa'd ever had.

Sandor laughed. "You eat like your sister."

Sansa froze. The meat was suddenly tasteless in her mouth. "My sister?" she said weakly.

Sandor wasn't looking at her, but down at the sword. The fire flashed across his face and across his armor. "Yeah, your bloody fucking sister."

"Arya?"

"You got another sister?"

"When did you see her?" Sansa felt a wildness growing inside her, a panic and a hopefulness both. "Is she alive?"

"Calm down, little bird. It was a long time ago." Sandor lifted his head and stared into the flames. "Not even winter yet."

Sansa slumped back, her heart still pounding in her chest. "When did you -" she whispered.

"I found her in the Riverlands after Blackwater," he said. "She was fine then. More or less. Left me for dead, the little wolf bitch."

"Dead?" Sansa asked. "But you're -"

"Not dead? Trust me, little bird, I noticed."

"She didn't - offer to help you, or -"

Sandor peered at her, then, his hair hanging into his eyes. "Of course she didn't fucking help me. She doesn't have your  _courtesy_."

Sansa didn't say anything. She knew what had become of all her family save for Arya. She had told herself that Arya was dead, and had resigned herself to a life without her sister, but now -

"You don't know where she went?"

"Bloody hell, it was almost ten years ago. My leg was about to fall off, and the brat and I weren't exactly friends." He scoffed. "If we had been, I wouldn't be here."

"Don't call her a brat!" Sansa didn't understand that last part. She wasn't sure wanted to.

"As if you never called her the same. Had trouble thinking of the two of you as sisters." He nodded at the slab of half-eaten meat Sansa still held in one hand. "You ought to finish that off. You'll need the strength to walk back to Winterfell tomorrow."

Sansa looked down at her meal. Her stomach growled. It felt like a betrayal, somehow, to eat while knowing that Arya might still be alive - but she knew that was an absurd thought. Sandor would mock her if she shared it with him. She almost wanted to mock herself.

Sansa finished the rest of the meat and then ate a handful of snow to wash it down. The snow made her shiver, and she moved closer to the fire to warm up again. Sandor didn't, only stretched out on the cleared ground to sleep. Sansa thought of a song she'd always liked, about a maiden running away with a knight, how the knight had placed a sword between their two sleeping bodies to protect her honor. But she wasn't a maiden anymore, and she found she did not like the idea of a sword lying between herself and Sandor.

A quake of desire rippled through her.

Sansa jerked her gaze away from Sandor, her heart pounding. She thought of lying with Harry, stretched out on her back in their marriage bed, her eyes on the ceiling - sometimes she had let her thoughts wander, and they sometimes wandered to a tall strong man with dark hair, a man with half a face -

Sansa focused her attention on the flames, trying to distract herself. He was a  _sworn brother_ , and he was sworn to chastity. To think of him that way when she thought him merely a deserter of the King's Guard, that was one thing, that had brought her nights of warmth (even after Harry's death, if she allowed herself the luxury of self-honesty), but to think of him that way  _now_ , knowing he pledged himself to the Seven - it was heresy.

Heresy. There was a word she had never spent much time considering. The warmth in her body didn't feel like a heresy, as least as the septons had explained the it. No, this heat felt more like the opposite of heresy - like something secure in its  _rightness_.

Another terrible thought.

The flames danced through the darkness. Sansa felt herself drawn into them, into the white smolder at their core. The smallfolk at Winterfell sometimes talked about a fire god. They had heard of it from somewhere, some river of a information that flowed up from the south. She had never paid attention to the stories, having her own devotions, but the idea of a fire god held an appeal in the winter world, and she thought she could see his face in these flames, bright and beautiful and terrible and strange -

Beyond the fires, something moved.

Sansa yelped and fell back into the snow. The fire crackled on as if nothing had happened. This time, Sansa peered  _through_ it, to the forest on the other side. She didn't see anything but frozen shadows. She leaned closer, close enough that the skin of her face grew uncomfortably warm, but she was certain she had seen something, so certain -

Blue eyes.

A long white body.

Armor reflecting the golden light.

Sansa screamed and crawled backwards, kicking up a great flurry of snow. The eyes peered at through the fire, brighter than the flames. She gasped in air, her lungs and chest constricting.

An arm circled around her shoulders. A black-bladed knife flashed in the firelight.

"It's all right, little bird," and his mouth was pressed against her ear, rough, harsh. "If they could cross the fires, we'd already be dead."

"I saw -"

"I saw them too. Screaming's only going to bring more of them."

Sansa took deep, panicked breaths. Sandor eased her closer to him, and even though the hard shell of her armor she was aware of the solidness of his body.

"You're all right, little bird."

Sansa didn't know what to say. She found herself pressing against him, moving as if on a string controlled by some alien force. She lay her hands against his chest, but she couldn't feel his heart beating through his armor. He pulled her back to the center of the ring, and from here the firelight darkened the shadows enough that she could no longer see the Others waiting on the other side.

"Will they put out the fires?" Sansa whispered.

Sandor didn't answer, but his free arm dropped suddenly against her waist. She expected him to pull her close but he didn't.

"Lay down," Sandor said. "Try to sleep."

"Sleep!"

"It'll make the night go by faster. I can watch the fires."

Sansa took a deep breath. She didn't want to pull away from him. She wanted the warmth and strength of his body close to her. He had always made her feel safe. She hadn't always known it, but that didn't make it any less true.

"Lay down with me," she whispered.

Silence. His breath quickened against her skin.

"Please."

This time, he drew her down in response, pulling her against the cold, snowy ground. She lay with her back against his chest, and she reached down and took his hand in hers, their fingers clumsy through the gloves. He lay the sword down by their heads. She pulled his arm up so it wrapped around chest, and he tightened his hold on her, bringing her even closer. His mouth was at her neck, a spot of warmth through the fabric of her hood, and it was almost a kiss.

"Stay with me like this," Sansa whispered. She watched the fires and she watched the shadows flickering over the snow. The world past the fires was an unknowable nightmare. "Stay with me. Until the morning."

She didn't expect an answer. But after a few moments passed, he said, "I will, little bird," and his voice rasped the way it had the night of Blackwater Bay.


	4. Chapter 4

 

They made it to Winterfell in the next day's loamy twilight, snow falling around them like lost stars. Sansa almost wept when she saw Winterfell's charred walls growing out of the blanket of white, and despite her exhaustion she lurched forward into a stumbling, crazed run. She didn't make it far; the twisted knot of a nearby tree root, disguised by the snow, caught her foot and she crashed down, landing hard on her knees. Snow coated across her face and seeped through the gloves. She was too tired to move.

A large rough hand grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet.

"Watch yourself," Sandor said. "You die this close to the castle, you just wasted me a trip."

Sansa laughed, tears stinging at her eyes. Sandor stared down at her for a few seconds, then reached over and dusted the snow off her forehead. His touch startled her, but afterwards she felt calm, her hysteria evaporating out into the cold.

They hadn't talked about last night on the day's walk. They hadn't talked at all. But he had stayed with her until sunrise, as he promised. Sansa had woken up and found his arm still draped over her waist. She hadn't immediately rolled away from him, although she knew she should have: in the daylight it was inappropriate, intimate, for him to touch her so casually, the way Harry used to touch her in their bed.

But during their silent march, Sansa had thought it funny that the bed she shared with Sandor was a pallet of ice and snow and rocks. Everything about him was hard and cold and horrible.

"We should get into the castle's walls before nightfall," Sandor said, pulling his hand away from her face.

"I don't know why everyone thinks I don't know that." Sansa trudged forward, her joints aching, her armor stiff and awkward from the water damage. "Geoffrey said the same thing..."  _He's still dead_. She had put him out of her mind the last few days, but now that she was back at Winterfell propriety had a meaning again, and she would say a prayer to the Crone as soon as she was able.

"Because you're the queen," Sandor said. "And they expect you to be a fool."

Sansa looked at him at over her shoulder. Even in the haze of cold and hunger and fatigue she heard something in this words she hadn't expected. "They  _expect_  me to be a fool?" She hesitated. "Are you're saying that I'm not?"

Sandor stared straight ahead and didn't answer.

His silence made her skin tingle - he'd never hesitated to call her a fool before, why was he hesitating now? But before she was able to consider the matter further, a rider burst out of the castle gates. The snow-steed kicked up a great plume of ice, and its breath huffed through the frozen silence of the forest.

"Queen Sansa?" he shouted. "By the old gods, tell me it's you."

"Yes!" she cried out, her voice strained and shaking. "Yes, oh, Ser Frederick, is that you?"

The rider pushed forward. It was Ser Frederick, the captain of her Queensguard - she recognized his soot-colored helmet, fashioned in the form of a boar. Some relic of the summer. He thundered through the snow and pulled to a stop beside her, and Sansa wobbled in place, not believing that she might soon be able to  _sit_. In front of a  _fire. Inside_.

"We'd been scouring the woods for you, your Grace," Ser Frederick said. He jumped off the snow steed and bent down on one knee. Sansa wanted to laugh at the absurdity of his formality. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sandor scowl. "We thought you lost. We thought you - they burned the bodies but they couldn't find yours, and we - we feared the worst."

Sansa knew  _the worst_  went far beyond death.

"I'm still quite alive," she said. "Please, stand up, it's foolish to kneel in this weather."

Ser Frederick rose, his leather armor creaking in the cold. Oh, gods, if she had only worn leather armor to the Outpost, maybe her limbs wouldn't be aching and sore from the weight of her ill-fitting metal armor.

"I'll take you back to the castle right away," Ser Frederick said. He looked at Sandor for the first time, and his eyes widened. Sansa wondered if he recognized him. But Ser Frederick only gave a little bow and said, "And the North thanks you for your service, brother."

Sandor grunted.

"See to it that Brother Sandor receives a set of clean clothes and a hot meal," Sansa said. Her voice still trembled, but seeing Ser Frederick had reminded her of how to act like a queen. "And I want him put up in the rose room. Have a fire started and a bath drawn. A  _hot_ bath."

"Of course, your Grace."

Ser Frederick helped her climb onto the snow-steed's back, then climbed on behind her. Sansa caught Sandor's eye through the falling snow. His gaze bore into her, as fierce as ever, but in the soft, shadowy light, his scars looked the way they had in her memories: softened and blurred to indistinction. Or maybe something had changed in the way she saw him.

He had saved her life. He deserved more than just a hot bath and a night in a heated room.

Ser Frederick dug his heels into the snow-steed's side, and Sandor turned away, began walking toward Winterfell.

"Wait," Sansa said. "Ser Frederick, stop."

"What is it, your Grace?"

"Get down."

She saw his hands tighten on the reins. "Your Grace?"

"Get down, Ser Frederick. We've been walking for the last two days.  _Both_ of us. Brother Sandor will ride with me into Winterfell."

There was a long silence. Sandor stopped and looked at her, hair sticking to his scars, hood pulled low over his forehead.

"Before the night falls would be best," Sansa added.

"Of course, your Grace." Ser Frederick's words came out sullen, but he did climb down into the snow. Sansa took the reins and looked expectantly at Sandor.

"I can just walk," Sandor said. "Your  _Grace_."

"No." Sansa kept her gaze on him, on his face. "You will ride with me into the castle like a hero. I won't have you shuffling in like a beggar."

"I am a beggar, now. Didn't notice the color of my robes, did you?" He sneered. "And I was never a hero."

"I will stay out here until the Others come, I swear to you."

Sandor looked up at her from underneath his hood, then laughed in his cruel, mocking way. Ser Frederick stared at both of them with faint astonishment.

"Your Grace -" he began.

"Go back to the castle," Sansa said. "I don't expect you to wait for him."

"Your Grace, this is foolishness. He's a sworn brother, they don't require -"

"I'll ride the fucking horse," Sandor said.

Ser Frederick's mouth snapped shut. Sansa kept her face blank. Where had this new strength of hers been when she'd been stranded in the woods, surrounded by monsters?

_You killed one of them. What could account for that, other than this strength? It was there all along. It just didn't look the way you expected it to._

Sansa shivered, then, and not from the cold.

Sandor limped over to the snow-steed, then pulled himself up to the saddle. Ser Frederick blinked at them once last time, looking as if he wanted to speak, but Sansa gave him her coldest stare and he began walking toward the castle. Sansa slapped the reins against the snow-steed's neck. They moved slowly, only a bit faster than Ser Frederick. Sandor rested one hand on her shoulder. His touch was so light that she couldn't feel it through her armor, but she saw it, his enormous stained glove sitting just on the edge of her vision.

"Thank you," Sansa said to him.

"I didn't need to ride in on your damned horse." His voice was a hum in her ear. "Or whatever the hell this is." Her jerked his chin at the snow-steed's antlers. These weren't wrapped in ribbons and flowers.

"You deserve a rest," Sansa said. "It's the least I can do."

Sandor didn't answer, but she was aware of him, the solidness of his chest behind her head.

They rode through the edge of the forest, past the glass gardens glimmering in the fading light. They rode through the line of ceaseless bonfires that flanked the path leading to the gate, and at the sight of them Sansa's stomach twisted up. They had been lit the night Harry was killed and had not once gone out, but Sansa thought back to ashes smoldering at the outpost. The outpost - it would need rebuilding, if she could find the money, the soldiers -

The castle gates swung open, and the twilight filled with the sound of cheering.

Sandor tensed behind her, but Sansa only lifted one weary arm and waved. The courtyard was filled with smallfolk and courtiers, more than should have been out during the encroaching darkness, but she supposed word must have spread that she had returned. She could hardly see their faces in the flicker of the firelight and the haze of smoke, but she smiled out at them, and promptly led the snow-steed to the quiet of the stables.

"That wasn't so terrible, was it?" she asked as she slid from the snow-steed's back. Sandor glared at her for a moment before dismounting, and he never bothered to answer. Sansa handed the reins over to the stable boy and turned back to Sandor, who was still glowering at her in the darkness. She had felt a surge of strength upon walking back through the walls of Winterfell. She was in her element again; she knew she could overcome the horrors of the last two days.

"I'll see to your room," she said, and then she curtsied at him, a slight curtsy but a proper one, her back straight and her arms extended at her sides, even though she didn't have a skirt to swish and pool at her feet. Sandor's mouth twitched.

"You saved my life," she said, before he could mock her. She pushed past him, feeling graceful despite the constant, miserable pain in her joints and the stiff heaviness of her armor. She stopped in the stable doorway, firelight washing over the straw and the restless animals. She could feel Sandor behind her, a heat, a presence. "I'll send one of the serving girls to take you to your room. They should be preparing it now."

She waited, counting her heartbeats, the way she did when she held court:  _one, two, three, four five_. She didn't know how she expected Sandor to respond, and when she was greeted with only silence, it almost surprised her. No cruel words, no treating her like a child.

She looked over her shoulder at him. He was watching her, his massive shoulders slumped, his hair hanging in his face, his eyes glittering with a ferocity that would have frightened her seven years ago. Now, as a woman grown and wed and widowed, with a woman's knowledge tucked away inside her memory, that ferocity only made her dizzy.

"I'll see you at dinner," she said, and then she stepped out into the courtyard, which was filling fast with snow.

* * *

The bath steamed in its alcove, fogging up the glass in the windows. Both windows had been stained once, when Sansa was a girl, in depictions of the Mother and the Maiden - wedding gifts from some Tully bannerman. The Mother had shattered in the years while Sansa was away and been replaced with plain glass. Now only the Maiden remained, smiling down at her with a mischievous lilt at the corner of her mouth.

Sansa slid deeper into the silky bathwater. Her handmaiden Mirabelle had dropped in lavender buds and the air smelled sweet, like spring clouds. Not that Sansa remembered the spring.

The water did much to make her feel clean again, but it did little to work the pain out of her body - the maester had brought her an ointment in a little glass jar, which he left on her bedside table, and told her to rub it into her joints before she came down for dinner. Even so, Sansa couldn't bear the thought of climbing out of her bath, not while the water was still hot enough to make the air sweat with the scent of lavender. The cold felt as if it has worked its way into her bloodstream. She hadn't realized, out there in the woods, that she might ever be truly warm again.

She let her head drop under the water and opened her eyes. Her hair flowed around her, strands of auburn like the red of fallen leaves. The torches were dots of golden light that bled into one another as she shifted her body, the water sloshing up the sides of the tub. She had dropped into another land, where the lights floated through the air by magic, where winter never came.

When she couldn't hold her breath any longer, she sat up, the water streaming over her shoulders. She settled back and looked up at the Maiden, but she didn't think of the Maiden. She thought of Sandor, and of Geoffrey, and of Arya, lost somewhere in the wild world. Gods, how could he mention so casually that he had seen Arya - not just that he had seen her, but that he had  _interacted_ with her, enough to make that comment about her courtesy? How could he keep that from her? That Arya might still be alive?

_It was seven years ago_. Sansa dropped down in the water. Seven years ago she had been a child. Seven years ago Sandor had been the sworn shield of the king of Westeros. Now that king was dead and that kingdom was fractured like a fallen mirror and a queen ruled from the Iron Throne. And Sansa, the frightened little child who couldn't even look at a scarred face - she was a queen herself, of a kingdom covered in ice and snow and haunted by nightmares.

A lot could happen in seven years.

But Arya could still, maybe, be alive.

The bathwater was growing cold. A chill crept in through the cracks in the stained-glass window, which had always fit loose in its frame. Sansa slipped under the water one last time, to look at the dreamy lights dancing overhead. Then she stood up and called for Mirabelle, who bustled in and dried her off and rubbed the maester's ointment into her joints. It had a sharp, stinging smell, but the ache faded, just as the maester had promised.

"When will dinner be ready?" Sansa asked.

"Within the hour, your Grace." Mirabelle rubbed at a particularly sore spot between Sansa's shoulders, and Sansa sucked in her breath, muscles tightening. But then the ointment soaked into her skin.

"Good. Make sure Brother Sandor knows that he's invited to dine with us. You can tell Hadrian, he can send word."

Mirabelle murmured that she would, then brought Sansa her dinner gown, a thick green-and-gold brocade lined with layers of silk. It was one of Sansa's more beautiful gowns, brought in from the south when she was married.

"I thought you should look your best, your Grace," Mirabelle said when she laid it out.

Sansa knew that she meant for the court, but Sandor's face flickered in her mind for a second or two. She pushed it aside.

"Yes, of course."

"We're all so happy to see your returned."

"I'm happy to be back." Sansa smiled at her, and for a moment Sansa was filled with a genuine happiness. "It was - quite the adventure."

Mirabelle frowned at the word  _adventure_ , but she didn't say anything. Sansa dressed quickly, and it was a relief to be in women's clothes again. How men could walk around in that heavy armor constantly was beyond her.

Mirabelle combed out her hair and wound it up in a heavy, elaborate braid, then dressed it with a sheer golden scarf that glinted with flecks of golden thread.

"You look lovely," Mirabelle said.

"Well, I imagine it's certainly an improvement over how I looked when I came riding through the castle gates."

Mirabelle laughed. "I hardly recognized you, your Grace."

"Well, I hardly felt like myself, so that's fitting. I think I'll go down for dinner early. I'm sure the court would like to know for certain that I'm not some trick of the Others."

Mirabelle nodded, and they left Sansa's bed chambers and walked together down to the Great Hall. Someone had lined its walls in more candles than usual, and for a moment Sansa was reminded of the light glimmering through her bath water.

_Another world_.

Most of the court was present, and all of the guards, but when Sansa scanned the room she saw no sign of Sandor. Well, Mirabelle hadn't a chance to run and tell Hadrian to send him on his way - Sansa turned to her with a soft smile and said, "Would you mind sending my message along to Hadrian? About Brother Sandor?"

"Of course, your Grace." Mirabelle curtsied and disappeared out of the hall.

Sansa wandered the hall in a daze, greeting people in the mechanical way she did when her mind needed to retreat into itself. She smiled, she thanked them for their concern, she listened to the stories of the last few days' fear.  _As if it any way compares to mine._ But of course she would never say that aloud.

Dinner was a more elaborate affair than usual, with a great roasted boar glazed in sweet tree sap. When she sat down at the table, she was struck by how much the presentation looked like her hungry daydreams during her time in the forest. For a brief, panicky moment, she thought it was all an illusion, that she was still stranded in the snow. But the scent of food made her mouth water, and she remembered that she could never quite grasp onto scents when she'd been daydreaming.

Her first bite of boar was so tender that it dissolved on her tongue, and she had to fight not to eat the way she had with Sandor, shoving food into her mouth like a savage.

Sandor -

He had never come into the Great Hall. Mirabelle had delivered her message, of course: she sat at Sansa's side now, eating primly, and Hadrian had come in shortly before dinner was served. But when Sansa gazed down the length of the table, no scarred face stared back at her.

Sansa called over Hadrian.

"Where's Brother Sandor?" she asked him.

"I'm sorry, my lady, but he was dreadfully, ah,  _tired_ , and asked to have food sent to his room."

Tired. Sansa looked up at Hadrian' handsome, straight-lined features, and read the story of what had really happened: Sandor had growled and snapped at him until he went away.

"Yes, of course," she said. "I can imagine that he must be exhausted from our journey."

"And you too, your Grace." Hadrian gave a bow, and Sansa sent him back to his seat, her heart filling with a dull sorrow. Sandor had not come down from his room. Geoffrey's seat was empty. She supposed they had already burned his body. That dull sorrow sharpened, clarified: she couldn't even give him a proper goodbye.

Sansa found she could eat hardly any of her dinner. Her stomach was full after only a few bites of food, and she pushed her plate aside and took a drink of wine. But she didn't want wine, either.

The room was full of light and laughter, beating back the darkness outside, but Sansa found herself sinking into her role as queen, thinking on all things she would have to face tomorrow: Rebuilding the outpost. An answer as to why the fires went out. Tending to the plants in the glass gardens. Ensuring that the Others did not trickle down from the woods and attack Winterfell again.

There was no Harry for her to lose this time. There was no heir growing in her womb. But there was a castle full of people who had cheered when they learned she didn't die, and there was the possibility of finding Arya, and there was Sandor.

Sandor, who had not even bothered to come to a dinner thrown in his honor.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up: This chapter (very vaguely) references some of Sansa's abuse during Clash of Kings.

 

Sansa woke that night to the crackle of fire in the brazier. Why did the fire sound so much louder here, in her bed chambers? She had listened to the crackle and snap out in the woods the last two nights - although in the woods, the muffle of the snow had swallowed up all other sounds, and the fires had seemed far away.

Sansa stared up at her ceiling. She had hung a tapestry there when she first returned to Winterfell, to hide the scorch marks from when the castle had burned the first time. It was an old thing, threadbare, depicting a song she was certain she used to know - a maiden and a prince, no doubt, and a journey into the dark woods - although she couldn't recall the details. She used to have so many songs memorized.

She rolled onto her side, closed her eyes. Drowsiness settled over her like a fog, but she never actually fell asleep. The coals collapsed in the brazier and jolted her wide awake again, and she watched the fire's glow swell and diminish across the bricks of the wall. Her mind worked backwards, through dinner and Sandor's absence, through greeting Ser Frederick in the woods, through the night spent in a ring of fire. He had held her so close. Harry'd never held her while they were sleeping. Sansa had never wanted him to.

Another burst of crackles from the brazier. Sansa sighed, rolled over onto her stomach, and buried her face in her pillow. After two nights spent sleeping in the ice, her bed chambers were almost too warm. She kicked off her blanket, rolled over onto her back, onto her side again, this time away from the brazier.

Sleep wasn't going to come.

The cogs in her mind were still turning. Sandor scowling at her, snowflakes caught in his hair - they were incongruous in their delicacy, like bits of lace, or tiny white flowers. Flowers, flowers, the Knight of Flowers - she hadn't thought of him in years, his shining armor, the blossoms hung around his neck. She remembered that dusty hot day when he conceded the tourney to Sandor, and the Hound had been crowned champion. Something else had happened during that tourney, something red, violent - but she only remembered The Hound, with his snarling dog's head helm. The first time she had ever seen him was in Winterfell's courtyard, but it had been covered in soft green grass then, and she'd thought winter was just one of Old Nan's stories, like the Others.

Funny which stories turned out true, and which ones didn't.

Sansa pushed out of bed. Shadows hung from the ceilings like curtains, thick and smoky from the brazier. She didn't want to lie in bed any longer, so she stepped out onto the cold stone floor and dressed in one of her simple woolen gowns. She plaited her hair into a single braid that fell like an arrow down the center of her back. She was readying herself to see someone. She knew exactly who it was, but she didn't allow herself to think his name.

She couldn't leave through her main door, since her Queensguard would be waiting on the other side - Brandon Allard, tonight, not that it mattered, because she wanted to be completely alone. So she walked to the far corner of her bedchambers, pushed the tapestry aside, and indented the stone that activated the latch to the escape passage. The passage smelled musty and dank, and the air was frigid, but she only followed it for a few short moments before it spilled her out into the main corridor of the castle.

The hallways were empty, dark, cold. The few torches flickering against the wall were too small and too far apart to cast any heat, only enough light for Sansa to make her way quickly and silently to the eastern wing, where the spare bed chambers waited for Winterfell's occasional guests. The best of them was in a turret that looked out over the eastern forest. In the summer that turret was covered with climbing roses, and so for as long as she could remember that room had been called the rose room.

Hopefully Sandor was there.

She reached his room without anyone seeing her, although if someone had seen her, what did it matter? She was queen, he was a sworn brother. She only needed to tell them she was going there to pray.

And why was she going to his room?

She didn't have an answer.

His door was shut tight, but a thin, wavering line of orange glimmered between the crack between the door and the wall. If the brazier was lit, then someone was inside.

Sansa took a deep breath and rapped softly on the door. She waited. No answer.  _You should go back to your room_. But she knocked again, more firmly this time, and leaned close to the door, listening. On the other side, the sound of heavy footsteps, a muffled curse. Sansa knocked again.

The door swung open, nearly hitting her.

"The fuck do you want?" Sandor growled, peering out in the hall. "What could you possibly -"

He stopped, his eyes settling on her. A brief flash of surprise. A frown that looked like a snarl. "What do you want?"

An answer appeared fully-formed on her lips: "I want to ask you about Arya." It was even true, although it wasn't the entire truth.

"This can't wait till morning?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"So you came to me."

Sansa stared at him, shoulders and back straight, with the same calm, lucid expression she used on diplomats from the south. She wasn't sure it would work on him, but after a moment's time he stepped away from the doorway and pulled the door open.

"I don't know where your bloody sister is," he said, "but if the little bird  _can't sleep_  -"

Sansa stepped into his bed chamber. She knew vaguely she shouldn't be here, but when he closed the door the feeling dissipated. She'd seen this particular room several times - she had helped rebuild it, she had swept out the floors and cleaned the tapestries that now hung from the walls. This room had helped her learn how to work. She wondered what Sandor would say to that if she told him.

It seemed different now, though. Sandor took up so much of its space.

"Where was the last place you saw her?" she asked, striding across the room, turning her gaze away from the bed - the sheets were crumpled, pushed aside, and there was an indentation where Sandor must have been sleeping.

"I fucking told you," he said. "The Riverlands."

Sansa sat down in the chair beside the brazier. Sandor hadn't moved from his place by the door. He only wore his smallclothes, she realized. Sansa's cheeks flushed with heat. She looked over at the window. The glass was frosted over entirely with ice.

Sandor laughed. "You woke me up," he said. "I didn't expect to see the queen outside my door."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you do." She heard his footsteps against the stone. "You were married. Twice." He sneered. "I heard about it. Heard about both of them. Even on the Quiet Isles, we heard about it. The ravens would shit news once a day." A creak as he sat down on the bed, and only then did Sansa turn to look at him again. "So I expect you've seen more than this since King's Landing."

Sansa fought back the blush. "You're right," she said, lifting her chin a little, reminding herself that she was no longer a child. "I have."

He laughed again. It sounded bitter.

"You didn't answer my question about Arya."

"You and I must have a different concept of an answer then, 'cause I fucking told you, twice now, that it was in the Riverlands."

"The Riverlands!" Sansa cried. "Where in the Riverlands? What town? Did she tell you where she was going?" The questions came out in a tumble. The force of them surprised her, although it shouldn't have been a surprise _._ All her brothers were dead. But Arya -

Sandor leaned back, his hair falling away from his scars. They caught in the firelight, monstrous and frightening and as charred as the castle walls. "No, the little wolf bitch didn't tell me where she was going."

"Don't call her a bitch."

Sandor dropped his gaze back to hers. She held it.

"She wouldn't have told me," he said. "She hated me." A pause. The fire snapped. "Not like you."

Sansa blinked, unsure of how to respond. But Sandor didn't give her a chance. "It was outside some shit little village. I don't remember the name. Close to the river, though, that was where the begging brother found me." He leaned forward, his face carved into shadows. "I was dying. Tried to get your sister to put me out of my misery, but she refused. You would've, wouldn't you, little bird? Slid a knife through my heart if I asked you?"

"No," Sansa said.

"More like your sister than I thought."

He looked like a monster, there in the darkness, but Sansa had seen enough real monsters since the start of winter that she wasn't fooled.

"Arya isn't a killer." Sansa folded her hands in her lap, feeling prim and proper. "But she should have dressed your wound. She should have helped you -"

"I watched your sister kill. She spared me out of cruelty, not kindness. But you know mercy. You would've done it."

Sansa fixed him with a cold, hard stare. She kept her face a mask because her thoughts were wild and chaotic with confusion.  _I watched your sister kill_. No, it wasn't possible. Arya would've only been - what? Eight years old? Nine. And she couldn't possibly -

"Run out of pretty words, have we?"

"You didn't die," Sansa said. "She spared your life."

"Left me with a limp, is what she did. Left me worthless."

"Worthless! How are you worthless? You saved my life." Sansa felt suddenly breathless, as if the fire were drawing away all the oxygen from the room. "I would have frozen to death or - or worse, if you hadn't found me. If you hadn't given me a cloak." She stared at him. "Why  _did_  you have a cloak? And gloves?"

Sandor's eyes glinted, hard as obsidian.

"And why were you in the woods? You would never run from a battle."

"You bloody well know that isn't true."

Sansa's face went hot. "That was different," she said softly.

Sandor didn't respond, just kept his hard gaze on her.

"That battle wasn't - you were -" Sansa fumbled for the words. "You were like me."

The silence in the room was choking.

"We were both prisoners," Sansa said.

"I wasn't a fucking prisoner."

Sansa tilted her head up at him. "Then why did you have to escape?"

Sandor's eyes narrowed. He didn't say anything. Sansa thought of all the times he had told her things she didn't want to hear, about knights and swords and killing, about strength, about survival.

"That's why you were kind to me, wasn't it?" Sansa asked. "Because you saw it too."

"In what bloody world was I kind to you?"

"In that one." Sansa took a deep breath. "You - stood up for me. You defended me." In the last seven years, King's Landing had become a nightmare, dispersed by the daylight. She could hardly remember its individual horrors, only that they had happened.

"I thought you came here to talk about your sister."

"I did." Sansa's voice trembled. "But -"

Sandor's lips curled up into something like a smile, something like a leer. "The Queen in the North gets lonely at night? It too cold for you up here?"

"Yes," said Sansa.

Sandor's smile vanished, replaced by that burst of surprise across his twisted features. Then even that disappeared, and his face twisted up and he said, "Still mistaking me for a knight."

"You're not a knight. You're a sworn brother."

"You shouldn't trust this robe any more than you trusted that fucking cloak."

_That fucking cloak_  appeared in her thoughts unbidden, a yellowed white, stained with blood and dirt, wrapped around her shoulders, folded up in the bottom of her trunk.

"I didn't trust the cloak," Sansa said. "I trusted you."

Sandor pulled away from her, his scars disappearing into the shadows. "What do you want, little bird?"

"I don't know." This room was overly warm too. It heated up her blood so that she could feel it pumping through her veins. She was suddenly very aware of her body, of the space it inhabited here. Every fiber of her dress that touched her bare skin left a tingle in its place. "I thought I wanted - I wanted to ask about Arya, but you were so  _horrible_ about it -"

"I was only telling you the truth."

"She killed someone?" Sansa looked up at him. "How could she?"

"How could you kill the White Walker in the camp?"

"That was diff -"

"No," Sandor said, "It wasn't."

"I don't - are you saying she had to? Or that he would have killed her?"

"Something like that." Sandor leaned forward into the light again, but something in his eyes seemed shaken and haunted. "The men she killed deserved to die."

"Men?" Sansa said weakly.

"Aye. They deserved to die, except for the one who deserved mercy." Sandor seemed to fill up the darkness. "I deserved to die, and that's probably why she didn't grant me mercy."

"You didn't deserve to die!" Sansa shouted. Her voice bounced off the walls, and she slapped her hand over her mouth, stunned by her own outburst.

Sandor laughed in a way that sounded like swords slamming against each other.

"You kept my sister safe," Sansa said. "You kept me safe."

"No I didn't," Sandor said, voice low and rumbling. "I stood by and let them beat you. Or don't you remember?"

"I remember," Sansa said, although her memory was little more than hulks of metal, sharp starbursts of pain, dusty light spilling across the floor. And Sandor. Sandor was the clearest part of her memory, Sandor unclasping his cloak, the feel of it against her bare skin as she had pulled it tight around herself. "I remember you never once struck me. I remember you lied for me."

Sandor didn't say anything.

Sansa stood up. A peculiar strength had flooded through her. She thought of all those months in the Vale, how she would pull out his white cloak and smooth it over her knees and wish that she could have thanked him. She still had the cloak, somewhere, folded away with the rest of Alayne's things. "I remember you offered to take me away," she said, and she took a step toward him. For a moment the floor seemed to tilt beneath her feet, but she closed her eyes and the world right itself. "I remember."

When she opened them, she stood close enough to where Sandor sat on his bed that her knees touched his. Even sitting, he was only a few fingers' width shorter than her, but it was enough that he gazed up at her, the firelight catching the grey in his eyes and turning it golden.

"I remember," Sansa whispered, but she found she couldn't say the word.  _A kiss_.

_I remember a kiss_.

Then she leaned forward and pressed her mouth against his. She rested her hands on his shoulders and felt the muscles tighten beneath her touch. At first he didn't move, he didn't reciprocate. She kissed him harder, and only then did his arms snap around her waist, pulling her roughly into his, and his mouth moved clumsily against hers, his lips rough with scars.

It was utterly unfamiliar.

_No_ , Sansa thought. No: she didn't remember a kiss. She didn't remember the feel of his mouth, the awkward weight of his tongue, the solid clutch of his arm at her waist. She didn't remember any of it.

Sansa pulled away from him, gasping. He squinted up at her and laughed, a short, sharp bark. "Told you I wasn't a knight."

"What?" Sansa stumbled away from him, one hand pressed against her head. She was vaguely aware of him shifting on the bed, pressing toward her, brow furrowed, eyes dark. But it wasn't that. The kiss - hadn't been bad. It had just been  _false_. It wasn't the kiss she remembered.

_He never kissed me._

Sensations washed over Sansa in a wave: the cold press of a knife against her throat, the hot bloom of breath against her cheek. Her voice trembling through a room flooded with green light.

"You threatened me!" she cried out. "You threatened -"

Sandor snorted and looked away.

"No, not now - during Blackwater Bay." Tears shimmered at the edges of her eyes.  _He never kissed me._ Who had kissed her? Ser Dontos, it had been Ser Dontos the Fool who had kissed her, out there in the misty night air of her escape boat, and her skin had crawled over her bones for hours afterward.

She only wanted it to be the Hound. She had only wanted it to be Sandor.

"I have to go," Sansa said. "I'm sorry -" She tripped on her skirts, then flared them out and bent her knees in a sloppy curtsy. Sandor looked - angry, she thought. And hurt?

No, that was only her imagination.

She was certain of it.

"Good night, Brother Sandor," she said, curtsying her way to the door. Sandor watched her through the darkness. "Good night. Thank you speaking with me about my sister. Thank you -"  _For making the kiss real_.

But she couldn't say that out loud.

Sandor made a growling noise deep in his throat and turned away from her. Sansa couldn't find the words to explain, and she hovered by the door, trying them out in her head. None of them fit.

"Get out," Sandor said.

"Yes," Sansa said, weakly. "Yes, of course. I'm sorry."

He still wouldn't look at her.

She pushed the door open and spilled out into the hallway. Everything was wrong. Which other of her memories were false? Had she ever even been married to Harry? Had she ever had a sister named Arya?

_Of course. Other people remember them both. Don't be a fool_.

Sansa leaned up against the wall and let her tears come. They left streaks of warmth down the sides of her face. Her thoughts were a confused jumble: the green light of the wildfire, Joffery's cruel pale face, Sandor dragging her to the safety of a horse, his armor covered in blood.

And the kiss.

The kiss, which was finally, terribly, sweetly, real.


	6. Chapter 6

 

Three days passed.

Sansa sat with her three remaining advisors in the northern tower. It was snowing again, and the flakes plinked against the smoky glass in the windows. Occasionally Sansa found herself listening to the sound of snow instead of her advisors' voices.

She had to stop herself from thinking,  _Where's Geoffrey? What could possibly have him held up_ -

The thought left a pain in her heart.

"It's completely destroyed," said Terric. "We hadn't even discussed rebuilding until we knew you had returned safe and sound. I'm afraid there weren't - many survivors of the attack, but we should have enough to patrol, at the very least."

"We'll have to rebuild," said Godwin. "That's not a question."

"If we could restock the Wall -"

"The Wall! You saw the last raven from the Wall. The Others will have it occupied by now -"

Terric's hand shot out and gripped Godwin's arm, silencing him. Sansa gazed at both of them.

"I saw the ravens too," she said. "This is hardly news to me." She felt tired. Sandor was still in the castle; she saw him from time to time, down at the stables with the horses, or at the kennel with the dogs. He had not spoken to her; she had not spoken to him. "Nikolo, what do you think?"

Nikolo settled back in his chair. He was the only one of her advisors not from the North - indeed, he wasn't even from Westeros, but from Braavos, and he sometimes wore lovely, bright-colored robes over the woolen clothes of the north. He didn't wear any such thing today, however, only a simple grey tunic, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

"You know what I'll say, your Grace."

Terric and Godwin sighed. Sansa shot them a dark look.

"Magic, your Grace. It's what built the Wall -"

"The Wall might as well be rubble at this point," said Godwin. "Perhaps we should look to other suggestions."

Nikolo gave a soft, sad-looking smile. "The Others have found a way to cross it, yes. They've also found a way to put out fires."

A chill rippled down Sansa's spine, and her two other advisors fell into the sort of a frozen silence she associated with fear.

"Do we know that for certain?" she asked, finding her voice.

Godwin cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, his eyes down at his lap. "At the outpost, your Grace, perhaps you had fled before -"

"I saw," she said. "I saw the ashes, at any rate. But I built fires on my way home, and the Others never crossed them, much less put them out."

"You saw the Others?"

"Yes," she said. "Without a doubt, I saw them. The fire stayed lit." She looked at each of her advisors in turn. "Hence my question. Do we know for certain that it was the Others who put out the fires, and not someone at the outpost? An old enemy? A spy?"

The advisors exchanged glances. "I suppose we don't," said Terric. "But this deep into winter, a spy seems unlikely -"

"But it's not out of the question." Sansa bit on her lower lip, thinking. When Queen Daenerys claimed the Iron Throne, a year or so into winter, she had ravaged the landscape of the south with her dragons' fire; it had only been through Littlefinger's machinations and Sansa's diplomacy and the simple luck of the conquerer being a  _queen_  rather than a king that she had been able to strike an accord and save the North. There were many in the south, she was certain, who would like see Winterfell burn as their homes had - but she also knew the south was starving. The North had repaired itself, the south had gone to war, and she doubted any of them would try to march on Winterfell in the dead of winter.

Especially with the threat of monsters looming in the snow.

Of course, the threat of a human spy was easier to solve than the threat of the Others learning to put out fires.

"No, it's not out of the question," Nikolo said. "But neither is the possibility of the Others growing in strength."

"Of course," Sansa murmured. "Which is why we should take both possibilities into account when deciding our course of action. We  _have_ to rebuild. At the very least we should construct towers to warn the castle of a threat. And larger fires. Rings of fires. Keep the soldiers surrounded on all sides."

Terric and Godwin nodded. Nikolo watched her and she knew he was thinking of magic. But what use was magic if there was no one in the entire continent, north or south, who could practice it? She had brought Nikolo with her to Winterfell after the attack two years ago, partially because he promised her solutions unique to the lands of Westeros. But he'd only spoken of magic, and of traveling to Braavos to visit a woman of the Shadow. He'd advised her in other issues to great success, but on the matter of the Others, Nikolo had nothing.

"The matter with the fires," Sansa went on, "might also be heat. Terric, speak with Maester Hamou about developing powder that can burn hotter, like wildfire -" Her voice hitched when she said the word, an unexpected bolt of emotion surging through her body. The hairs on her arm rose up, as if lightning had just struck nearby.

"You Grace?" Nikolo asked gently. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Sansa straightened her shoulders and smiled at all of them. "Wildfire burns hotter than normal fire, and it's far more difficult to extinguish. That may be our solution."

"A dangerous one," said Godwin.

"Well, yes, we'll have to  _adamantly_  control its use. Only trusted men will be allowed to ignite it. This is all assuming we can even develop it, of course, if Maester Hamou is willing to try." She took a deep breath. It was so easy for her to slip into the role of queen. Although it was easy to slip out of, too. "And all three of you are responsible for listening to the whispers of the castle. Find out if there's a spy. We'll treat both explanations for the fires going out as if they're both true, at least until we learn otherwise."

Her three advisors nodded. Now that she had spoken about the possibility of wildfire, a doubt lingered in the back of her mind. It could work. The Others were creatures of the cold and hated the heat. But Sandor hated wildfire.

_What does it matter what the Hound hates?_

_It's cruel to him._

_He came here of his own accord. He knew fire would be one of his weapons._

Sansa pushed her thoughts away.

"Godwin," she said. "Meet with the stonesmiths about rebuilding the Outpost. Talk with anyone who doesn't have a family first."

He nodded.

"We'll build closer to the castle. That way they won't have to spend the night in the woods, and we can build watchtowers first, to give us earlier warning in case of an attack." She nodded. "Winterfell can withstand a siege."

She wasn't sure she believed her own words.

"Of course it can, your Grace," said Nikolo, and for a moment Sansa thought he was going to speak of magic again, but he didn't.

"Is there anything else?" Sansa asked.

"No, your Grace," each one said, a heartbeat after the other.

"Very good." She pushed away from the table and stood up. Her three advisors -  _four, it should be four_ \- stood up with her. "I'm rather tired and would like to go back to my bed chambers. Please keep me updated on your progress. I'll see all of you at dinner."

Her advisors bowed. Sansa smiled at them, even though her heart didn't feel like smiling, and she swept out of the room.

* * *

Sansa didn't go to her bedchambers. She meant to, she'd every intention of going, but she found herself walking out to the courtyard instead. Enough snow had fallen to cover the muddy, slushy human, animal, and cart tracks that usually veined across the courtyard. It was one of those rare moments when Sansa could still believe in perfection.

No one was out.

Sansa stepped into the snow, lifting her skirts up around her calves. Her feet sank in up to her ankles, but her boots kept them warm and dry. Behind her, Philip Ward of her Queensguard rattled in his armor, but he kept otherwise silent, as befitted his position.

She walked close to courtyard wall, not wanting to mar the the fresh snow, and Philip did the same. After an afternoon spent in the northern tower, the winter air had a crispness that Sansa found refreshing. She tilted back her head to look up at the sky, steely grey and lit with pale winter sun. She ought to visit the glass gardens, to see how her chamomile plants were growing. She hadn't had a chance to check on them since arriving back at Winterfell.

But when she came to the edge of the courtyard, she turned left instead of right. Away from the glass-gardens, away from her chamomile. She walked idly, stomping through the snow, the cold pleasantly burning at the inside of her nose. Her skirts dragged behind her, heavy with damp. Philip's armor was the only sound in the courtyard, and it clattered and clamored up to that empty empty sky.

She was going in the direction of the kennels.

It was a decision her body had made independent of her mind. She knew why her legs were taking her to the kennels, but she told herself it was unlikely he would be there, because of the cold and the snow. She trudged forward anyway, until she could make out the sound of dogs barking, and she could smell them, faintly: wet fur and old meat leftover from the kitchens, that smell that surrounded the kennel even when the dogs were gone.

She could not stop walking towards those dogs, even if she had wanted to. A line of energy drew her inexorably forward.

The dogs were kept inside a walled enclosure for the winter, heated like the rest of the castle. Sansa pushed on the door, nudging it open. Her heart fluttered at the discovery that it wasn't locked. She pushed it open further, and peered inside. The light was winter-dim, but it glowed warm and golden from the fire, which meant someone, some human, must be here. The dogs yapped at her sudden appearance, and the kennel-master turned toward her.

Except it wasn't the kennel master.

"Hello, Brother Sandor," Sansa said. She lifted her skirts and stepped inside, bringing with her a spray of snow that scattered across the straw. Philip clanked in after her and stood in the corner, his hands clasped in front of his stomach. She saw how Sandor's eyes went to him, and she wondered, briefly, if he was thinking of King's Landing, of those years he had stood in that exact same position in the rooms and hallways of the Red Keep.

"Your Grace," he said, sounding more like the dogs than a man. He turned away from her and tossed a scrap of meat at one of the dogs, a scrawny little thing which hardly seemed capable of surviving the winter. He sniffed the meat, licked it, then settled down to chew, looking rather content.

_Why are you here_?

The question floated, unspoken, on the air. Sansa took a step closer to Sandor. Another. He turned to her again, his eyes hard and glinting in the firelight. She remembered the kiss, the real one, how hungrily he'd grabbed at her. Her body felt suddenly too hot.

"I'm glad I found you here," she said, and it shocked her how normal her voice was, how clear. "I'd like to extend an invitation for you to join me for dinner."

"Another one?" Sandor reached down and scratched the scrawny dog between the ears.

"I hope it isn't because you don't feel welcome -"

Sandor jerked his head up, face dark and scowling. His scars gave her a second's stupid fright. "What makes you think I'd ever feel welcome at your dinner table?"

Sansa faltered. She could feel Philip standing behind her. Watching. "A sworn brother is always welcome at my dinner table -"

Sandor snorted.

"Especially one who saved the queen's life."

"I'm a begging brother," he said, snarling a little. "Leave me to beg." And he turned away from her and limped across the kennel, over to the water trough. She wanted to explain to him - explain that it wasn't his kiss, it was his knife at her throat seven years ago. He had threatened her, frightened her - and offered to save her.

Her own desires twisted back and forth, as confusing as his actions.

And Philip still stood in the corner, her sworn guard, but a man who could repeat every word uttered in this kennel.

"I had a dog once," Sansa said. "A pet, not one for hunting."

Sandor made a whistling noise and the scrawny dog ran up to him, tail wagging.

"It wasn't the most even-tempered dog," she went on. "I found him in the woods when I was out riding. I think someone had hurt him. I couldn't bear to leave him, of course, so I brought him back to the castle, and I asked the maester to help me heal him." She laughed and edged closer to Sandor's side of the room, where he had crouched beside the scrawny dog and was working water into his fur. "The maester refused at first but I threw such a fit that eventually he conceded, and he made a salve that I put on the dog's paws - they were ruined from walking through the woods - and a cut on his side. His wounds healed, but he still had a mean streak."

She had not taken her eyes off Sandor once while she was speaking, and with that last sentence, she thought she saw a hitch in his shoulders, although she wasn't sure.

"I wasn't sure how I felt about the dog," she said. "He followed me around, though. Most people he wouldn't let touch him, but he let me, once or twice." She moved closer, her skirts rustling over the straw. A dog sleeping in the corner lifted his head, barked once, and curled back up. "There was a thunderstorm one night. One of those summer storms, where you feel like the entire world is falling apart. I felt sorry for him so I let him into my bed chambers, but he raced around, growling at the lightning. I tried to calm him down, but he bit me." She held up her right hand, even though it was smooth and unscarred. Sandor glanced over his shoulder at her, then turned back. She dropped her hand to her side.

"He bit me hard enough to draw blood," she said. "And I screamed until the Septa came in and chased the dog away. I wouldn't have anything to do with him after that. I had to keep my hand bandaged for months. I couldn't work on my needlepoint."

Sandor made a noise that she thought might be a laugh.

"And I hated that dog for so long," she said. "And why wouldn't I? He bit me. He  _hurt_ me. Can you blame me for that?"

Sandor lifted his head, stood up. Then he turned around, his left foot dragging in the straw, and stared at her. The scrawny dog stuck his head out from behind Sandor's cloak.

"Dogs bite," Sandor said.

"This one only did it because he was frightened." Sansa stared straight at Sandor, straight at the seam between his eyes where scar tissue kissed skin. "But he still hurt me."

Sandor's mouth twitched. "Did you put him down?"

"Of course not."

"Maybe you should have." His eyes flicked away from her, toward the fireplace, toward Philip. "Maybe you shouldn't have dragged him in from the woods. Some creatures, it's better to just let them fucking die."

"No," Sansa said. "It's not."

He looked at her again. She could not read his expression. He had become a mirror reflecting her emotions back at her: her grief, her pain, her longing. When she looked at him, she saw only herself.

She blinked, and a tear formed at her lash line.

"I do hope you'll join us for dinner," she said. "My advisors wish to thank you in person."

"Bugger your advisors," he said, and he turned away from her again, again with that lopsided, shuffling gait. The sight of his limp twinged her heart.

"Then do it for me," she said, in a colossal act of bravery.

Sandor's shoulders rose and fell. His head dipped down.

"Maybe," he muttered.

It was more than she could have hoped for.

"I thank you for that, Brother Sandor." She curtsied again, a quick, pious dip, then turned with a swirl of her skirts and marched out of the kennel. She wiped her lingering tear away with a quick and practiced movement, brushing at her eye as if to knock away a piece of dust. She did not look at Philip, who said nothing, as befitted his position. He only followed her out into the cold, where the whiteness of the snow nearly blinded her.


	7. Chapter 7

He did not come to dinner. Sansa sat in her chair at the head of the table, weighed down by her blue brocade dress, the one with the tiny sparking jewels sewn into the bodice and the flounce of Myrish lace at each of the sleeves. It had been a wedding gift from Littlefinger, and because of that, she rarely wore it - but it was her loveliest dress, and if she didn't dwell on its origins, the dress made her feel beautiful.

The ladies of her court commented on the dress, of course, and she smiled at them and didn't offer an explanation as to the occasion. All evening long, she had to take care that the lace didn't drag across the glaze for the fish, and she had to listen to the tinkle of the silver chains that Mirabelle had woven into her hair and which fell like strands of light along the side of her face. So much effort for a maybe.

And why did she care if he thought her beautiful, anyway? Why did she think he would even notice her dress and the chains in her hair? He was the sort of man who derived joy from killing, who would hold a knife to a girl's throat.

_And do nothing otherwise to hurt her. He only ever threatened, he didn't harm - didn't strike me with the flat side of his sword or the back of his glove, didn't force me to stare at my father's severed head -_

_He saved me from the riots_.  _He would have taken me from King's Landing. He was sometimes gentle with me -_

Sansa could hardly eat her meal. Her thoughts were a tumult: Sandor and the kiss and her memories of the past, the Others, the threat of a spy, the ruined outpost. The wildfire. What had she been thinking, asking the maester to develop such a horror? She would have to tell him no, they would have to find another way. Just because it was hot enough to extinguish the Others didn't mean it was worth the risk of burning the forest or the castle - or the men.  _Sandor_. No, any of them.

She wanted someone to speak with. Her advisors had their own agendas, and besideswhich, they were as bewildered and overwhelmed by the loss of the outpost as she was. And her advisors didn't always tell her the  _truth_ , either, because they still thought of her as a mere queen. Only Geoffrey had seen her as a king, as a ruler. But he had lied to her, too. He would tell her what she wanted to hear.

_A hound will die for you, but never lie to you._

The thought flickered, unbidden, unwanted. Sansa stabbed at her fish in frustration and ate a bite of it, which tasted like ash on her tongue. She took a long drink of wine. Nothing helped.

Down at the end of the table, a trio of ladies exploded into giggles, and the sound of their voices only irritated her further. Sansa pushed away from the table, her chair scraping against the stone. Everyone turned to look at her, their voices silencing.

"I'm afraid I'm not feeling well," Sansa said. "I think I'd like to retire for the evening."

A murmur of concern rippled down the table.

"I'm fine," Sansa said. "It's just a headache."

"But your lovely dress!" said one of the court ladies. "It's a shame to go change right away."

Sansa gave her a sad smile, knowing there would be whispers tomorrow morning about her dressing in finery when she had no visitors or guests to entertain.

"The dress will keep," she said, and she dipped her head at the diners. When she stood up, so did everyone else, and they lowered their heads until she glided out of the room. Out in the hallway she heard their voices twinkle back on, but she couldn't make out what any of them said.

Ser Frederick was with her tonight. She walked up to her room, hoisting her heavy skirts up to her ankles. Her chains chimed and Ser Frederick's armor clanked and Sansa wished she didn't require a Queensguard, that she could run freely through the castle the way she had as a girl.

At her bedchamber, she turned to Ser Frederick and wished him a good night. He smiled warmly at her, then positioned himself against the wall. She went inside.

"Your Grace!" Mirabelle looked up from her chair by the fire, where she had been mending Sansa's gardening gowns. "You're back much sooner than I expected."

"I'm not feeling well. I'd like to go bed early tonight." She walked toward her vanity. "You may have the rest of the evening free."

Mirabelle's face lit up. There was a boy, Sansa knew, who worked in the stables, tending to the snow-steeds. He had brought Mirabelle a sprig of winter holly once, thick green leaves and four berries as red as blood. She had worn it in her hair that day, blushing whenever anyone asked about it.

Sansa stepped out of her shoes.

"Let me help you, your Grace." Mirabelle set the gowns aside and stood up.

"Oh, that's not necessary," Sansa said. "Go on. You want to catch before he runs off to drink with some of the other stable boys."

Mirabelle's cheeks turned bright red. "It's no trouble, your Grace."

"I insist." Sansa gave her a bright, queenly smile, and Mirabelle curtsied and thanked her and then all but skipped out of the room.

Sansa locked the door after she left and sat down on her bed, her skirts flouncing up around her waist. Distantly, she could hear the call of men's voice, and singing - she was vaguely aware that a new shipment of wine had arrived from Essos. Enough to drink away the memory of the attack at the outpost, she supposed.

She stared at the fire for a few moments, losing herself in the blue-white core of the flames. She didn't want to undress: she'd put so much effort into her appearance, and no one important would even see.

_Not necessarily_ , a voice whispered in the back of her thoughts.

Sansa stood up abruptly, her heart hammering. It would be so easy. She could take the escape passage all the way to the eastern wing, and besides, anyone she didn't want seeing her should either be at dinner or out in the snow drinking wine.

_So easy -_

Sansa put her shoes back on and slipped into the escape passage, easing the door shut behind her. She hurried through the corridor, her skirt stirring up clouds of dust and strings of cobwebs. Her breath puffed out in front of her, white in the cold, but she hardly felt it, her heart was beating so fast.

When she arrived at the eastern wing, she edged the door open and peered out into the hallway. Empty. The men's voices were louder here, carrying in through the windows. She would knock on his door only once. If he didn't answer, she would go back to her room. If he did answer -

Sansa strode forward. She held her head aloft as if she were on some sort of official business, but it didn't matter, because the hallway stayed empty. She reached Sandor's room. She lifted her hand, paused, her heart rattling her bones.

She knocked.

Through the door, he shouted: "What in seven hells do you want?"

Sansa sucked in her breath. Part of her had hoped he wouldn't be in the room, part of her had hoped that he would.

"It's me," she called out softly. "Sansa."

Silence.

Then: footsteps, slurred from his limp.

The door swung open, and he loomed up in front of her and scowled.

"You here to tell me another horseshit story?"

"That story wasn't horseshit."

Sandor's mouth quirked up at the vulgarity. "Come in before anyone sees you."

Sansa stepped into the room, suddenly feeling absurd in her brocade gown. Sandor shuffled over to his bed and sat down and looked at her. His eyes glittered in the firelight, and she wondered if he saw the jewels sparking at her waist, or the silver glinting in her hair.

"You weren't at dinner," she said. "I wanted to make sure you weren't unwell."

"Stop lying to me."

"I was only being courteous."

Sandor scoffed, but she saw in his expression not one trace of cruelty or mockery. She rustled across the room and slumped down in the chair by the fire.

"I need to speak to someone," she said. "Someone who'll listen and tell me the truth when I ask for it."

Sandor blinked and pulled back a little. "Then go talk to your bloody advisors."

"My advisors lie to me."

"So you came here."

"You won't lie to me. You said that once, remember?"

Sandor's mouth hardened. He leaned forward again, shoulders hunching, his hair falling over his eyes. "Yes, little bird," he said, "I remember. But you weren't a queen then. And I'm not doing your fucking ruling for you now."

"I don't want -" Sansa took a deep breath. "I told the maester to make wildfire."

Sandor's eyes widened, and his mouth curled up into a snarl.

"I'm not going to use it. I decided at dinner. But I - I panicked. I wasn't thinking. They say the Others can put out fires now. That was our only defense, the fires. It used to be the Wall, that's what Nikolo told me. There was magic woven into it, ancient magic. No one in Westeros knows how to do it anymore. But  _they_  found a way to cross. All my advisors think crossing the magic makes them weak, that they're crossing in bands and amassing at Castle Black. And I don't know what to do." Tears fell down her cheeks, marring the kohl she'd ringed around her eyes - almost the last of it, but she'd used it tonight, because she had thought he would be at dinner. She realized she'd been trying to distract herself from the reality of her position, by dressing up for some handsome knight (well, not handsome, and not a knight, but it was close enough).

Maybe she still really was just a queen. Just a child.

Sandor's bed creaked. Sansa lifted her head, the chains flashing light at the periphery of her vision. He limped over to her and handed her a handkerchief. She laughed in a shrill, hysterical way, remembering the last time he had done this. She'd been overwhelmed then, too: with anger, though. Not fear.

He stood beside her as she dabbed at her eyes. The handkerchief came away black with kohl. She handed it back to him but he shook his head. "I imagine you'll be doing more crying by the time the night's out. Go on. Tell me the rest."

She blinked up at him. "That was everything," she whispered.

He frowned, moved back to his seat on the bed.

"You want me to tell you the truth?" he asked.

She nodded.

"You're fucked."

Sansa stared at him, his handkerchief trembling in her lap.

"Well, not just you. All of us. The entire bloody North, and the south too, whatever in the seven hells its calling itself these days. Your advisors are right. We sent scouts to the Wall, we saw the damned White Walkers and their fucking walking corpses."

"I know," Sansa murmured, "I read the notes from the ravens."

"So this isn't just what your advisors have told you, is it? You've turned out smart enough, you put the pieces together. Stop thinking you need to play the little talking bird all the time."

Sansa looked up at him sharply, her cheeks warming.

"Don't look so pleased with yourself," he said. "We're still fucked."

"But what should I do?"

"Why the fuck should I know? I'll kill them for you. There are plenty of other men who'll do it too. If not for you then for something else. Themselves, their families, the joy of killing, I don't know. But you aren't ever going to stop them. We don't have the blades for it, for one."

"The swords," Sansa said. "There has to be a way to make more -"

Sandor laughed. "You have obsidian stores locked away in the castle vault?"

Sansa glared at him. "There has to be a way. Somewhere in Essos, perhaps -"

"Essos doesn't give a shit about us. Not the Free Cities, not the slave cities in the south. What's the threat of a monster that comes out with the cold in a place where it doesn't bloody get cold?" Sandor smirked. "You want to know what I think you should do? Leave. Let the fucking castle fall and find a boat that'll take you to the Summer Isles. No White Walkers there, I'm certain of it."

"If that's what you think I should do," Sansa shot back, "then why haven't you done it?"

Sandor's face settled into a mask. The coals in the brazier crackled and hissed. Sansa wrapped his handkerchief around her hands and looked away from him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's not my place to ask."

"I think you know the fucking answer," Sandor said.

Sansa's head snapped back to him. He wasn't looking at her anymore, but at the brazier, the hot smoking coals. She couldn't breathe.

_He came here for me._

"Sandor," Sansa whispered. "I -"

Her words frosted into condensation in the air, and all her blood turned to ice.

"Sandor," she said, and this time his name cracked with fear. "It's cold."

The cold had come on that split-second of realization. Panic rose up in Sansa's throat. Sandor turned to her, his breath steaming, and he pushed to his feet and pulled his obsidian sword out from under his pillow and clutched it in both hands.

"Where do you go during a siege?" he rasped in a hard, frozen voice.

"I don't -"

The bells rang out.

The sound came from everywhere, so loud it shuddered Sansa's bones. It drowned out all her thoughts. She could not stop shivering.

Sandor grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to her feet. "Where?" he shouted, shaking her. "Where do they take you during a siege?"

Sansa looked up at his burned face, at his eyes wild with fear. Why was he scared? The Hound wasn't scared of anything but fire, and these were creatures of ice.

"Where?" he shouted. "Where will you be safe?"

_Me,_ she thought dumbly.  _He's scared for me_.

"The northern tower," she said, finally remembering. "And we set fires in the courtyard to keep them away. We can take the escape passages to get out- "

The door slammed open.

In one movement Sandor dragged Sansa up against his chest, his arm crossed in front of her, his sword shining darkly in front of them both.

A long tall figure stepped into the doorway.

Sandor pressed his mouth against Sansa's ear and whispered, "Where's the escape passage?"

Blue eyes gleamed through the darkness, and firelight refracted off its armor so that dots of white light bounced around the room.

"The hallway." Her words came out in a whispered panicked. "Three doors to the left."

The Other stepped into the room, its movements graceful and inhuman. Sansa let out a yelp of fear, and Sandor pulled her backwards, his sword still a barrier between them and the monster.

"I'll tell you when to run," Sandor breathed into her ear.

She turned her head enough to see him out of the corner of her eye. "What about you?"

He didn't answer, just kept stepping backwards. The Other matched his steps. It was looking at Sansa, its bright blue eyes boring into hers. They weren't dead and flat the way she expected, but teeming with a cold sort of intelligence that made her tremble against the strength of Sandor's arm. The Other leaned forward, studying her. Sansa keened softly and pressed herself against Sandor's chest. His arm tightened around her. His breath quickened against the top of her head.

The Other let out a low, garbled hiss. Its lips curled up, revealing a row of teeth as sharp and crystalline as its sword.

_It recognizes me,_ Sansa thought with a sudden surge of terror.  _It knows I'm the queen_.

The Other lunged forward, sword streaming through the darkness. Sandor caught it and screamed " _Run!"_  and Sansa dropped away from him, away from the clash of the two swords, dark on light. She scrambled across the floor, her skirts tangling around her feet, the chains in her hair slapping against her face. She could see the hallways's yellow light through her frozen breath. She could see -

Two slumped figures moved into the doorway, their swords gleaming, the skin of the faces rotting away to reveal muscle and bone.

Sansa froze. For a moment she could only stare at them. Then one lifted its sword and pointed it at her.

She launched herself across the room, hooking her fingers around the edge of the door, slamming it shut, shoving the lock into place.

Howls out in the hallway.

Sansa flipped around, her back pressed up against the door. Sandor fought with the Other in a blur of blades, moving only with his upper body. The Other darted around him, lither and faster, and with no ancient injury in its left leg.

Sandor let out a yell and brought his sword down over the top of the Other's head - but it caught his blow, and for a moment they were locked in a stalemate, Sandor's eyes burning with fire, his arms cording with muscle, his injured leg shaking beneath the weight of his body.

_He's going to collapse_. Sansa slid to her feet. She could still hear the wights outside, hissing and howling.  _He's going to collapse and he's going to die and it's going to be because of me_.

No.

She wouldn't let that happen.

The Other spun around in a blur of white light, but Sandor caught his blow, his face twisted in a grimace. Sansa skittered along the perimeter of the room, toward the brazier.  _Fire. Obsidian blades and fire_.

She hunched beside the brazier and watched the fight's chaos and gauged as best she could the exact moment to act.

Sandor knocked the Other on its armor, and it went reeling back. Sansa upended the brazier. Coals arced through the air, leaving golden streaks in their wake, beautiful as comets.

Sandor screamed and leapt backwards, his sword flying.

White steam filled the air, so thick it veiled Sandor from her. Sansa leaned up against the wall and wept. Her palms hurt. She turned them toward herself and saw they were blistered and red.

The steam lifted and gathered in clouds at the ceiling of the room. A pool of water gleamed on the floor, and beyond that, Sandor leaned against the bed, his chest heaving and his face twisting with fury.

"How the bloody fuck could you throw fire at me!" he roared, dragging himself across the room. "What stupid part of that little brain of yours thought you could that to me!"

"I didn't want you to die!" Sansa shouted back. She tasted the tears on her tongue. "I was trying to save your life." And she held up her hands, palms out, and he stopped, dropping his sword at his side. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"Little bird," he said, his voice hoarse, "Don't ever fucking do that again."

He limped over to her. She pushed herself up to standing, and he snaked an arm around her shoulder and led her, gently, to the water pool. She didn't understand what he was doing, but then he guided her hands to the water.

"No!" she cried, sick with revulsion.

"It's bloody ice water," he said. "Keep your hands in it while I figure out how  _the fuck_ we're getting you to the northern tower."

Sansa did as he asked. The water-that-had-once-been-a-monster leeched the pain out of her palms, and she took deep calming breaths and stared at the extinguished coals scattered like islands around the floor. Through the walls she could hear shouts and screaming, and she could smell smoke, and her heart hurt at the thought of her castle burning again.

A shadow fell over her. Sandor. She lifted her hands out of the pool and the water dripped down her arms, under her sleeves, leaving rivers of ice in its wake.

"Three doors to the left?" Sandor said.

It took Sansa a moment to understand what he meant, but then she nodded.

"Stay behind me. Do exactly what I tell you. And keep your thrice-damned hands off any fire. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

She expected him to lurch toward the door, but he didn't move at all, only stared at her from beneath his heavy brow, beaded with sweat despite the cold. Then he reached over and pushed away a strand of hair that had fallen in her eyes, his touch feather soft. Without thinking, she reached up and laid one hand over his wrist. It hurt to touch him, but she didn't care.

"I will keep you safe," he said, and his eyes were filled with sadness and she didn't understand why.

Shaking - with fear, with something else - she brought his hand to her lips and kissed the tips of his fingers. He didn't move, and he let her kiss him, one finger at a time. When she finished she lifted her eyes to his, and his hand ghosted along the curve of her cheek, and he said, "It's time to go."

And then he turned away from her and pulled open the door.


	8. Chapter 8

The hallway was empty but filled with the sound of fighting from outside. Sandor leaned out, flicking his head left and right.

"Where did they go?" Sansa whispered.

"Must've gone to find another master when this one died," Sandor said. "Run."

He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her out into the hallway and they ran, stumbling past the three doors, into the empty stone wall that disguised the passageway. Sansa pressed the heel of her aching hand into the stone and the door grumbled open, letting out a blast of air as cold as death.

"It's always cold," Sansa said quickly. "There are so many cracks in the stone -"

Sandor scowled. "Let's hope you're right, little bird."

They walked quickly through the passage, Sandor leading with his sword outstretched, Sansa whispering directions as she followed. Their breaths condensed on the air, and the only light came from cracks in the stone that let in moonlight and firelight from outside. The fighting sounded closer and closer, screams and howls of pain, the clink of metal against metal - of obsidian against ice. Sansa pressed closer to Sandor, laying the fingertips of her free hand against his back, even though her hand stung when she touched him.

"Maybe we should just stay in the passageway," Sansa said. "We'll have to run through the courtyard to get to the northern tower."

Sandor glanced at her over his shoulder. "If the passages were that safe," he said, "they'd tell you to hide in them during a siege."

"They were put in place to escape," she said. Their voices bounced strangely off the walls. "They lead outside of the castle. I'm not sure my advisors even know about them."

Sandor laughed. "I take it you haven't been using them for escape."

Sansa blushed. "I hadn't used them at all until you -" She didn't want to finish her sentence.

Sandor stopped, and Sansa bumped against him, smelled his sweat and the damp wool in his cloak and something else, something earthy and rich, like the soil after a rainstorm - it was  _him_ , the scent of his skin. Her head reeled. She wondered if he was going to say something about her coming to see him, but instead he grabbed her wrist and whispered, "Don't talk."

Sansa's heart began to pound. She wished she could shrink and disappear in the shadows. Sandor hoisted up his sword, and they stood side by side in the passage, unmoving, unspeaking. It felt like a lifetime.

And then Sansa heard it.

Footsteps.

She cried out without meaning too, and Sandor slapped one hand over her mouth and glared at her. His face face blurred with tears, but she gave a tiny nod of acknowledgment, and he nudged her up against the wall and she knew she was to stay put. Through the stone she heard the battle, but the footsteps were certainly in the passage, and they had a strange rhythm to them, a slurred sound that reminded her of Sandor's limp.

Sansa stared down the long dark corridor of the passage. Her heart beat too fast. She was afraid to close her eyes. Strands of light slipped through the stone and wove in with the shadows, and she waited, waited, waited.

She knew what she was waiting for.

And she right.

The wights appeared first as shadows, as silhouettes. Then their swords caught the moonlight and Sansa bit back a scream. Sandor pushed past her, his sword lifted high over his head, and he stumbled over to the wights and brought the sword down into the shoulder of one and then whirled around and shoved his sword into the belly of the other. Thick black blood splattered across his clothes and the walls of the passage, and Sansa shrunk back and looked away, although not before she had seen that his face was empty and dispassionate.

_Not like the riot in King's Landing. Not at all._

Sandor was at her side again, the smell of death so strong on him that she gagged. He yanked her by the arm and dragged her down the passage.

"Not so safe as you thought," he said.

"But you killed them!" She stumbled after him. "And what if they've infiltrated the northern tower too! What if if this is all hopeless?"

"I killed two of them. If there's any more than that I'll have to fight them in the open if I want to win." He didn't say anything about the northern tower. Fear shuddered through Sansa like a sickness.

They moved more quickly now, not quite running, Sandor grunting a little under his breath as he limped along. They did not have far to go, however, although Sansa almost missed the exit of the passage because her thoughts were so knotted up by terror.

"Here!" she shrieked. "We're here." The sound of fighting was so loud Sansa felt like she was in the middle of the battle. "Are you sure? Are you sure we should go out there? I could command you as queen -"

Sandor glowered at her. "I told you I would keep you safe," he growled. "Let me fucking do it."

Sansa nodded, trembling all over.

"Which way will the tower be from here?" he said.

"Straight ahead. You'll be able to see it."

"Stay close to me. If anything comes near you, scream. Do you understand? Scream so I know where you are."

Sansa nodded. She was afraid she was going to start crying.  _No_ , she told herself.  _Queens don't cry. He will keep you safe. Don't cry_.

"Open the door," he said.

Sansa moved forward, shaking so hard her hand knocked uselessly against the passage latch. She had to try twice more before the stone scraped into place, and the door sighed open.

She smelled smoke before anything else: then blood, the metallic scent of cold. Men's screams echoed in her ear. The ringing of swords. A rush of air blasted across her face, and she turned away, her eyes stinging and watering.

Sandor pulled her close to him, his arm across her chest, and for a moment she felt safe. Protected.

Then they were in the courtyard.

Chaos.

Half the fires were burning; the others were piles of ash. Sansa couldn't make out individual men, only shadows and flashes of dark light from the swords. The Others were like gusts of snow, smears of white against the darkness. Sandor dragged her through the slushy, bloody mud, and Sansa thought,  _My dress will be ruined_  and then there was this horrible inhuman scream and she realized Sandor had just sliced through one of the wights and it was dying on the ground as he pulled her past.

Sansa was aware of her heart beating. She was aware of Sandor's touch. She was aware of the cold.

Sandor's arm slipped away from her and his sword was whirling through the air. She smelled that choking scent of death again. She spun in place wildly, skirts flaring out, trying to find him in the turmoil. She couldn't. Panic gripped her so tight she couldn't breath. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe -

An Other walked past her, moving with a dangerous grace, almost beautiful in the moonlight. The battle slipped away from her and she found she couldn't stop staring at the Other, at its strange, purposeful walk. Toward the fire. It was walking toward the fire. It reached out one shining hand. The fire rose up in the darkness, gold and red. Heat. Heat. Life. The Other ran its hand over the flames, the way Sansa used to run her fingers over bolts of silk fabric.

The Other turned to steam and water.

The fire turned to ash.

Sansa screamed.

"There you are." Sandor had her by the arm again. He pulled her away from the fire's dying embers. The northern tower - it rose up out of the battle, blocking the view of the stars. The windows were illuminated. She thought she saw a movement in one, a face peering down at the courtyard. She was wild with fear. The Others could put out fires. Sandor would keep her safe.

He jerked away from her, shouting; ice water splashed across Sansa's face, and she recoiled, wiping at it with her hands, which burned with pain. Then Sandor had her again, and he was shouting at her to run, and she ran, but she refused to let go of him, she refused to let him stay out here in the courtyard and die.

She was at the door to the northern tower. No one seemed to be guarding it. She pounded on the door and it swung open.

Why wasn't it locked? Why wasn't it bolted shut?

_You're fucked_ , she thought.

"Your Grace! Thank the gods, your Grace is alive!"

_Nikolo_?

Someone was grabbing her. A man's hand, but smaller, smoother. It pulled through the doorway.

"Sandor!" she screamed. "Where's Sandor?"

"Here, little bird." His voice rasped and choked, and he was breathing hard, but he was inside. Distantly, she heard the door click shut. Sandor slumped against the wall, his sword clattering to the ground. He was covered in black blood and ice, and he could hardly hold himself up. When he collapsed, Sansa ran forward and caught him, but he was too big for her, and they both fell, slamming against the tower steps.

"Sandor," she whispered. "Sandor, please don't die."

"I'm not going to die." His eyes glittered at her. "But you need to get away from the door. Up the stairs." He turned to Nikolo. "Why in seven hells isn't the door fortified? And get her upstairs, away from here."

"The door is fortified," Nikolo said. "The Others can't pass."

Sandor stared at him, his chest rising and falling.

Sansa suddenly understood.

"Magic," she whispered, the word numbing her tongue. She felt light-headed, as if she'd breathed in too much smoke.

"Yes, your Grace." Nikolo took her hand and pulled her to her feet. "Oh, your Grace, what happened -" He turned over her palms. "I'll have the maester look at this right away."

"We're safe," Sansa said. She looked at Sandor. Beneath the black blood he was pale, and his leg shook violently, but otherwise he seemed unhurt. Outside, the battle raged, but they were all tucked away behind a wall of magic.  _Magic._ But Nikolo had said it was impossible for him to work the charms himself -

"Yes, your Grace," Nikolo said. "Let me take you up to the tower room and I can explain. We brought as many people as we could, particularly the children. Servants and high born both - I thought you that was what you would want."

"Yes," she whispered. She couldn't take her eyes away from Sandor. "Find someone to help Sandor - Brother, I mean, Brother Sandor - up the stairs as well."

"Of course, your Grace."

"Don't." Sandor lifted his chin a little, the black blood glistening in the light. "Let me lay here like an animal."

"You're not an animal." She didn't want to leave him, but she knew also she was expected to go to the top of the tower and comfort the children and the other ladies. She had to show them their queen wasn't dead.

Sandor laughed. She wanted to kneel at his side, wipe the blood from his brow. But Nikolo was watching her expectantly, his eyebrow arched up at an angle, and she wondered if he knew she saw Sandor as more than a begging brother. She wondered if he could tell her  _what_ she saw Sandor as, because she found she couldn't put it into words.

"Bring him to the tower room," she told Nikolo. "As soon as you can."

He gave her a graceful Braavosi bow.

She glanced at Sandor once last time. He was staring at her, shaking. She wanted to bend and touch his burned face with her burned palm, but she only lifted up her ruined skirts with the tips of her fingers and began the slow, shaking ascent up the stairs.

It was the hardest thing she had ever done.

* * * 

"Queen Sansa! You're alive!'

Mirabelle rushed out of the gloom of the crowded tower room and threw her arms around Sansa's shoulders. Sansa was stunned by her sudden touch and blinked at the faces, tear-streaked and pale, that stared at her from the flickering shadows.

"I was praying for you, your Grace," Mirabelle whispered fiercely. "Praying to the Seven that you weren't dead."

Sansa stared over the top of Mirabelle's head, seeking out Terric and Godwin and finding them, standing together near the windows reflecting orange light - from inside or outside the tower, she couldn't tell. Both of them looked angry.

Sansa pulled away from Mirabelle's embrace and smiled down at her. "I thank you so much for your concern, and I am glad to see that you made it here safely as well." She paused, wondering if they had allowed MIrabelle's stable boy in the tower as well. Probably not. "I was quite well protected," she added, because she couldn't ask about the boy, because she didn't want to watch Mirabelle's heart break if she answered  _no_.

"When they said you weren't in your room -"

"I left well before the battle. And I'm here now, safe and sound." She didn't say anything about her hands, which were burning as if they were still touching the brazier. Why hadn't she noticed this pain earlier?

"But Ser Frederick didn't see you leave." Mirabelle looked at her imploringly and lowered her voice. "If you need me to speak on your behalf - I don't mind lying, you Grace - "

"That won't be necessary," Sansa said. "But thank you," she whispered, just as Maester Hamou pushed through the crowd, clucking a little under his breath.

"I heard you received a bit of an injury," he said. Mirabelle's eyes went wide.

"Just a burn," Sansa said. "Like when you get too close to the cooking pot." She held her hands out to Maester Hamou, and when he turned them over he gasped.

"Your Grace!" cried Mirabelle.

"Oh come now, it's not so bad," Sansa said, even though her heart had lurched at his gasp.

"Can you move your fingers?" he asked. "Curl up your palm?"

"My fingers, yes," Sansa said, and she wiggled them to show him. "But my palm -" She tried to curl her left hand into a fist but pain erupted in sudden sharp line that shot up her forearm. "Oh," she said. "Oh, gods."

"It hurts?"

"Yes."

"But you can move it some. Here, sit while I work." He led her over to the large carved wooden chair set up at the far end of the room, close to where Terric and Godwin stood scowling at her. She gave them a soft smile as she settled into the chair.

"You should not have left Ser Frederick," Godwin said.

"Leave us," snapped Maester Hamou. "I have to treat her wounds before they become infected."

"Wounds?" Godwin leaned forward, peering down at her hands. "Seven hells, your Grace! What happened!"

"I killed an Other," she said. "Now leave us, as Maester Godwin asked. And as I'm commanding."

She could tell by the expression on Godwin's face that he thought her explanation about killing an Other was sarcasm. "A widowed queen can not be caught sneaking out of her room," he hissed, voice pitched low, eyes darting fervently around the room. As if the frightened servant's children gave one whit about what their queen got up to after dinner.

"Godwin, I really must insist that you discuss this matter later," Master Hamou said. Godwin frowned, but he stood up, bowed a little at Sansa, and rejoined Terric by the window.

The maester had laid out his supplies in a line on the floor next to the chair, and he picked up a jar filled with some clear liquid and asked Sansa to hold her hands out, palms up. It was the first time, she realized, that she had really seen them, how the skin was taught and shiny and red, how blisters had formed across her life line. She bit back a whimper: the sight of them was worse than the pain, somehow.

The maester drizzled the clear liquid over her palms and it stung but she stayed brave and didn't cry out, although her eyes watered. "I'm afraid there will be some scarring," Master Hamou said, "although you should retain full use of your hands once everything's healed up."

_Scarring_. She thought of Sandor's face, twisted and grotesque. She stared down at her red hands, now glimmering from Maester Hamou's ointment. Gods, where was Sandor? Why hadn't Nikolo brought him up?

"It won't be extensive," Master Hamou went on. "And it's winter, you can always wear gloves."

_And what about when winter ends?_ But in truth, Sansa couldn't imagine the end of winter, not when the Others were murdering her bannermen all around the base of the tower.

The maester dabbed at her hands with a piece of soft white cloth, and at this Sansa did cry out.

"I'm sorry, your Grace," the maester murmured. "But it's almost over."

Sansa leaned back against the chair and stared up at the rafters cutting across the ceiling. Smoke had gathered there in thick grey wisps, and it reminded her of the steam in the rose room after she had thrown the coals on the Other.  _We really are the same_ , she thought.  _Sandor and I. We've both been burned._

The pain in her hands seemed to lessen, although Sansa wasn't sure if that was only because she was growing used to it. The maester was wrapping her hands in some cool, silky fabric, and she closed her eyes. All she could hear up in the tower were the frightened hum of the voices of women and children. No clank of swords, no screams of dying men. No howling hisses of the Others.

She wondered if magic muffled the sound, or if it was merely height. She still couldn't believe that magic existed at Winterfell, that it was in the northern tower. Had it been here all this time? When she was a little girl? It must've, certainly no one had enchanted the walls since she returned.

"There, all done."

Sansa opened her eyes and dropped her head down to Master Hamou, who had leaned back on his heels and was placing his supplies back into their box. Her hands were two white fists, the color of freshly fallen snow.

"Thank you," she said. "I'm indebted to your knowledge, Maester Hamou."

"It's always a pleasure to serve my queen. How is the pain, your Grace? I can bring you milk of the poppy."

"I don't think I need it." She gently rested her hands in her lap.

"Let me know if you change your mind." He nodded and slipped off into the smoky darkness. Sansa wouldn't have taken the milk of the poppy even if the pain had been too much. She wanted to keep her head clear, although if Terric and Godwin were going to admonish her, as it appeared they were going to -

The door to the tower room slammed open.

Sansa tensed, her heart pounding. Every head in the room turned toward the door, but it wasn't an Other or one of his walking corpses that shambled in, only a pair of men covered in bloody armor, hoisting a sworn brother between them, and Nikolo.

Sansa leapt to her feet. Her head spun.

Voices rippled through the room. She ignored them.

"Put me down!" Sandor roared. "I can bloody well walk across the damned floor." He jerked away from the bannermen, who both let him go at the same time. He stumbled forward. Sansa pressed toward him, ignoring Terric and Godwin, who almost certainly disapproved of this show of piety.

"Brother Sandor!" she said, rushing over to him. He pressed one hand against the wall and stared at her from under a fringe of sweat-and-blood-clumped hair.

"Told you to let me lay on the floor like an animal," he snarled.

"Bring Brother Sandor a chair!" Sansa shouted, and there was a moment's pause and then a wild scramble. Sandor didn't stop glaring at her, and his gaze made her skin prickle.

"I'm trying to help you," she said softly.

"I don't need your help." His breath hitched. "Your Grace."

_You humiliated him_.

The realization struck her suddenly, like an ache in the center of her chest. She faltered, not knowing want to say - wanting to apologize, but certain that would only humiliate him further.

A chair appeared, brought by a pale blond squire who shoved it up against the wall without daring to look at Sandor. For a moment she didn't think Sandor was going to sit in it, but then he collapsed down with a grunt of pain, and he dropped his head back and closed his eyes.

"Brother Sandor?" Sansa whispered.

He didn't answer.

"Your Grace." Nikolo appeared at her side. "I think you should leave the brother to his rest." He lay a hand against her back and gave her a dark and unreadable look. "And you should rest yourself. We're safe here." He guided her away from Sandor, and she looked over at her shoulder at him as they walked away. His eyes were still closed, his face distorted with pain.

"The magic woven into the stones in tower is ancient," Nikolo went on, "older even than the magic at the Wall. That's why they don't cross it."

_So the magic was here all this time_. "Why didn't you tell me?" Sansa asked, staring straight ahead. "All your talk of magical fortification and you couldn't mention that we had our own supply at the ready."

"I wasn't certain of it, not until the attack came and I saw how the Others wouldn't come close to the tower door. There's a reason this tower has been used to protect the Stark family for centuries."

Sansa did not know what to say. It seemed such an impossibility, that she'd lived with magic for so long and not known it. Part of her wanted to lay her hand against the stones in the wall and see if she could feel the magic coursing there. But then Nikolo spoke again.

"I've asked the bannermen to bring the wounded into the tower." His voice was pitched low, and he leaned close to her ear. "It doesn't look - promising, your Grace."

Sansa didn't look at him. Her hands tingled beneath their silken bandages, a tingle that she knew would grow into pain soon enough. Aside from her hands, however, she was numb.

"Daylight will bring a respite," Nikolo continued on. "But we must decide what to do next. I've asked Benedict to prepare the advising room. I'm afraid it can't wait."

"No," Sansa said. The room was a tangle of voices and firelight and liquid shadows.

"We are so glad to see you alive, your Grace," Nikolo said. "Many thanks to that begging brother. We should see about a reward. An honor of some sort."

Sansa nodded, although she knew Sandor would scorn rewards and honors. Nikolo excused himself and walked across the room to meet with Terric and Godwin. Sansa watched them, watched the expressions of despair slide over their features. She would climb the stairs down to the advising room soon enough, but in this moment, she could only stand and stare at the firelight flickering in the windows and think about her kingdom turning into ice.


	9. Chapter 9

"It's hopeless."

Sansa turned her face to Godwin, who was slumped back in his chair, a goblet of wine dangling from his hand. Idly, she wondered if it was the same wine that had been brought in with the rest of the stores, the same wine that the men had been drinking out in the courtyard before the Others came.

"You're drunk," said Terric.

"Of course I'm drunk." Godwin gulped at his wine. "The castle's going to fall to the Others."

"It hasn't fallen yet," Terric said.

 The advising room was lower in the tower; Sansa could hear the fighting, distantly, so distant it seemed like some harmless children's game.

"And the tower is protected."

"Yes," said Nikolo. "And the entire castle will be protected when the sun rises."

Godwin scowled and lifted his goblet to his lips but found it empty. When he called over the little dirty-haired girl he had employed as his cupbearer, Sansa said, "No," in a sharp firm voice and the girl froze. It was the first word Sansa had spoken for quite some time.

"Your Grace!" said Godwin.

"No more wine. I need you think clearly. We've been here gods know how long and nothing has been decided."

Godwin slumped back against his chair. He'd started drinking the moment they came into the advising room, and consequently, he had offered nothing to the conversation aside from cries of "Wine!" Terric had proposed, feebly, that they call bannermen from the southern part of the kingdom to aid in the next night's fight, but Sansa had broken through her haze enough to remind him that they would never arrive in time. Nikolo had spoken of the shadow woman in Braavos, and while he and Terric argued about battle plans and the status of the men fighting for them in the courtyard, Sansa had remained silent. She was thinking. Not about Sandor, although his pained and humiliated face intruded on her thoughts enough to serve as a proper distraction. No: she had been thinking about magic.

She wanted her plan fully formed before she spoke. She wanted to answer their questions and address their complaints before they even realized they had them.

"Nothing has been decided," Godwin slurred, "because you haven't said anything."

"I've been thinking," Sansa shot back. "Which is more than I can say to you. And kindly address me as 'Your Grace.' I'm still your queen. When you're shambling on bloody stumps through the snow, bearing wine for some Other commander, then you can address me however you like."

A stunned silence fell over the room. Sansa looked away from Godwin -- because she knew if she saw his face she would be too tempted to apologize, and she couldn't apologize, not right now -- and lay her bound hands on the top of the table. They throbbed with each beat of her heart, but she would not take milk of the poppy. Not when she had an entire castle to save.

"Terric," she said. "You will ask Maester Hamou to send out two ravens, one to Lord Monte and another to Lord Gavin. Ask him to send duplicates in case the Others have discovered some way of shooting them down." She looked at each of her advisors in turn. "We are going to evacuate the castle at daybreak. They'll have a brief time to pack their things before we set out, to ensure that we arrive before nightfall. Half the castle will travel to Lord Gavin and the other to Lord Monte.  Assign randomly, but don't split up families." The pain in her hands seemed to heat a core of strength inside her, orange and molten like metal before it becomes a sword. "The day after, a percentage of the refugees will continue on to other lords' houses, and so on each day until we're evenly dispersed. _No one_ will travel at night, I don't care how far south they are."

Terric blinked at her and nodded.

"Alys," Sansa said. The cupbearer's head snapped to attention, her eyes wide. Sansa gazed at her. "Go back upstairs. Spread word amongst the servants that we'll be leaving at daybreak. Can you do that for me?"

"Y-yes, your Grace." Alys dipped down into an awkward, crooked curtsy. She looked terrified, and Sansa wondered if it was because of the Others, because of the evacuation, or because she, the queen, had spoken to her directly.

Alys set the flagon of wine aside and scurried out of the room, leaving Sansa alone with her advisors.

"Nikolo," Sansa said, "Bar the door."

No one moved. Sansa stared at him. She didn't feel like herself. She felt so much stronger.

"Yes, your Grace," he said, and he pushed away from the table.

When she heard the lock slam into place, Sansa spoke.

"Nikolo will leave Westeros," she said.

Her advisors exchanged looks. Godwin opened his mouth as if to speak, but Sansa held up one hand and said, "For Braavos. To see the shadow woman."

"Magic!" cried Terric.

"Magic is the only reason we're safe," Sansa said. "Not a single Other has infiltrated this tower. And I saw one of the Others put out a fire with my own eyes. They sacrifice themselves." She felt a curious emptiness as she spoke, and she looked to Nikolo. "You swear to me that this shadow woman can help us?"

"I swear to you," Nikolo said. "But your Grace, there is a bit of a complication --"

Sansa's blood froze. "What?"

Nikolo closed his eyes. Opened them. Sansa caught a scent of smoke that disappeared as suddenly as it came on.

"I won't be able to sail to Braavos alone, your Grace. The shadow woman -- I'm certain she'll require you to ask for her help yourself."

"Absolutely not," said Terric.

Sansa's thoughts crystallized. This was not the disruption she might have expected. She thought of Sandor's words: _Let the fucking castle fall and find a boat that'll take you to the Summer Isles._ Braavos wasn't the Summer Isles, but it was in the south, far away from the threat of the Others.

"I can't leave my kingdom," Sansa said.

Nikolo peered at her. "It's the only way."

"Why didn't you tell me before? How could you go on and on about the protection of magic and not mention that it was _impossible to get_  --"

"It's not impossible," Nikolo said. "I'm certain the woman would help you. I would lay down my life on it. But you'll simply have to ask her yourself."

"Well, can I send a raven?"

Nikolo tipped his head to the side. "Across the Shivering Sea?"

_My plan. My beautiful perfect plan_. _Bit it still might work --_

"You didn't answer her question," Godwin slurred. "Why didn't you see fit to tell us that she'd have to leave Westeros to work your little magic?" He wriggled his fingers as he said _magic_ , like he was a magician in a mummer's show. "You want to take the castle? Bring in your spies from the south? I'm sure the Dragon Queen would serve Braavos well, yes?"

Nikolo's face hardened and his eyes glinted. "Braavos has no use of barbaric Westeros," he snapped. "And don't you dare question my loyalty to Queen Sansa." He turned to Sansa and dipped his head. "Your Grace, I didn't tell you because I never expected you to actually agree to it. But I also didn't think the Others would fall upon us so quickly. I could never have foreseen them growing in such strength that they would put out fires. Your Grace --" And here he lowered his head until his brow almost touched the top of the table -- "Forgive me."

Sansa stared at him.

"You can't do it, your Grace," Terric said. "To leave the kingdom in the midst of chaos -- it can't be done."

"Leaving in the midst of chaos would be the simplest," Sansa said. Her voice seemed to come from some place far away. "It would be easy for me to set sail from Lord Gavin's keep, on a supply ship headed back to Dorne." She saw the image in her head: a black boat sailing down a black river. Her hair tucked away beneath a cloak's hood. Snow falling on the shore. Sandor at her side.

_Sandor at my side._ She could never take her guards with her, that would be the surest sign that the Northern queen had abandoned her people. But Sandor would protect her, and --

"Mirabelle," she said.

"Who?" asked Godwin.

"My handmaiden. She's not so much younger than me, and fair. It would be easy to stain her hair auburn."

"Your Grace, you couldn't possibly --" Terric leaned over the table. "It's your injuries, your Grace, the pain is muddling your thoughts. I'll call the maester."

"It's not the pain!" Sansa glared at him. If anything, the pain sharpened her thoughts, clarified them. Everything was clear as new glass. "Nikolo is right, this is the only way. We survived the dragons' fire only to be turned to monsters by the Others? No, I won't let it happen."

"She's right," Nikolo said. "If we don't stop the Others they'll overtake the kingdom. We can flee south to the borders, and what then? And even if we cross into the Dragon Queen's lands, do you think the Others will honor the borders? Of course not. If we flee, we will die. All of us. It's only a question of when."

"You're only saying that because it's what you want," Godwin said.

"No." Terric blinked. "No, he's right. Fleeing only delays the inevitable."

Silence settled over the room, thick and choking. Everyone turned to Sansa.

"Your handmaiden will stand in for you," Nikolo said.

"Yes."

"Will she rule too?" said Godwin.

"Of course not. You and Terric will stay behind and accompany her. She'll go as far south as possible -- to Lord Roderick's holding, I think that would be best. It's close to the seashore in case -- in case of a necessary escape."

Terric and Godwin exchanged glances.

" _You_ will rule in my stead. I trust you to make the right decisions. The Queensguard will stay behind as well. They will have to be informed, of course, and if any of them speak the truth, leave them in the woods at nightfall." Her voice trembled at that last part; she did not think any of Queensguard would betray her, but she knew too well the dangers of trust. It was for this reason she did not vocalize the other part of her plan: that Mirabelle would be told to alert Ser Frederick if there was any suggestion of a coup on the part of Terric and Godwin, and they would be left in the woods at nightfall as well. She trusted Mirabelle far more than she did anyone else in the castle.

_Deciding who to kill is a king's job_ , she thought. _A king's concerns. Not a queen's._ But she knew she had no choice.

"If your Queensguard stays behind --" began Terric, but Sansa interrupted him.

"I'll be traveling under disguise, of course, until we we reach the shadow woman." She took a deep breath. "Taking one of the Queensguard would be suspicious, that's why we're leaving them."

"I understand that, your Grace, but --"

"Brother Sandor will accompany me to Braavos."

Her words were met with silence.

"Who?" Godwin finally said.

Terric gave him an angry glare. "Do you always turn this stupid when you drink wine? The begging brother who brought her back from the outpost."

"And who brought me here," she added, "tonight."

"Yes," said Terric, and now his gaze had turned to her, and it was light and clear and she met his eye. "Funny that he found you, but you managed to evade Ser Frederick."

"I agree," Sansa said, "it is funny." She held Terric's eye, but he didn't say anything more.

"How do you know he'll agree to travel with you?" Nikolo asked gently.

"I know." _He came here for me. He was frightened for me. And I'll take him away to a place where fire needn't be a weapon. Of course he'll come._

For a moment, all four of them sat without speaking. Sansa realized she couldn't hear the sounds of battle any longer.

"I think this could actually work," said Nikolo, his voice cutting through the chilled air. "We shall not dally in Braavos, of course. It should only take a few months --"

"Months!" Terric shook his head. "You have any idea how much can happen in _months_."

"We've no other choice," Sansa said. "We take this risk and possibly survive, or we flee south and give chase to the Others and die before spring comes." As she spoke, she looked each of her advisors in the eye. This was a trick that Littlefinger had taught her, and like the lovely, now-ruined dress she wore, she found it useful as long as she didn't think on its origins. You look a man in the eye and most of them will let you look straight through to their thoughts. Most men, Littlefinger had said, are guileless in the presence of a beautiful woman.

This tricked worked on her advisors. She had used it before. And she met each of their eyes, and she saw no trickery there, and it was the best she could have hoped for.

"Make the preparations," she said. "We'll need to leave not long after sunrise to make it to the houses before dark." She stood up, and her advisors all did as well, even Godwin, who looked as if he might fall over. "Nikolo, we shall make our own arrangements when we arrive at Lord Gavin's estate."

"Of course, your Grace."

The pain in Sansa's hands had subsided again, to a low dull throb that was as persistent and as noticeable as a heartbeat. She managed to gather up her skirts like a proper lady, even though she knew the dress was tattered and ruined, and that her kohl was smeared and the chains in her hair were lopsided and tangled. She didn't care. She held herself as regally as she had at dinner, and as she walked out of the advising room, she told herself that everything work. That everything would fall into place.

She took the stairs slowly, trailed by Lawrence of her Queensguard, making her way back up to the top of the tower, where the whispers of evacuation should already be spreading like the choicest bits of court gossip. When she stepped into the room, the light seemed too bright, the air too smoky, the sound of voices too loud. She pushed it all away, and threaded through the women and the children and the servants, giving them brave sweet smiles so they wouldn't be afraid.

She came to Sandor.

He was asleep, his head dropped back against the chair, snoring a little. A goblet lay on its side in his lap; when she picked it up, she expected to smell wine, but it was only water that dripped out over her fingers. She set it on the floor and knelt beside him, her hands folded as if to pray. He was a sworn brother of the Faith, after all, and there was nothing strange about a queen praying as her castle was under siege.  She bowed her head, looking at him through the web of her eyelashes. Someone had wiped the blood from his face, and she was able to see _him_ , the lines around his unburnt eye, a faint pink ridge running along his jaw. The scars.

She whispered, "I'm going to take you away from the fire. I hope you'll come."

He slept on.

* * * 

Sansa walked to the glass gardens. All around her, the air was thick with black smoke and the stench of burning bodies. She kept her scarves tucked away with dried lavender blossoms for this reason, and she wore one of those scarves now, wrapped around her nose and mouth. It didn't help.

The courtyard was full of people making preparations for the evacuation; the procession would begin soon, she knew, the bells clanging and clanging so no one would be left behind. She had asked Mirabelle to pack her things, after explaining the plan to her. Mirabelle had turned pale and waxen but she had agreed, nodding her head and saying she would be happy to serve her queen in any way she could.

Sansa had asked Sandor for his help in the grey light of dawn, after she had explained everything to her Queensguard. Lawrence accompanied her to his room, where he was sitting in front of the fire, the simple brown bag of the begging brothers lying, filled, on his bed.

He had not gone pale and shaking, as Mirabelle had, only stared at her for a long time with dark eyes: at her face, then at her bandaged hands.

"You don't have anyone else?" he had asked, eyes darting over to Lawrence.

"I trust you with my life," Sansa answered, curtsying as she did so. "You saved it twice."

"Not many begging brothers make it to Braavos," he said. "They don't go in much for the Faith across the sea, I've heard."

"Perhaps you can bring that light to the people of Braavos, brother."

Sandor snorted. "I told you, your Grace, I'm a gravedigger." But then he nodded, and his hair had fallen across his eyes. "I'll go. But don't think this to mean I'm joining your Queensguard."

Sansa thought of his white cloak.

"Of course not," she told him. "You've already taken vows to the Seven."

His eyes had bore into her. "Yes. I have."

She knew she wouldn't see him on today's journey; he would travel with the other sworn brothers, those who had survived first the attack on the outpost and later the siege on the castle. Last night's fighting had not been quite the loss that Godwin and Terric and Nikolo had claimed, but it was bad enough. The charred, acrid smell on the air was testament to that.

At least the sun had risen. No one, not even the wildlings, knew where the Others went when the sun sparkled across the snow, but it was enough, that morning, to know they were gone.

Sansa reached the top of the hill that housed the glass garden -- and stopped, horrified. Her body vibrated. Tears blossomed at the corners of her eyes.

Only one garden remained. The others had been shattered, the vegetable blossoms and unripe fruits wrapped in coats of ice. A tiny sound escaped Sansa's throat, and she pressed her hand against her mouth. The gardens had been the first thing she and Harry had repaired when they reclaimed Winterfell, because the gardens were the only thing that could keep the castle alive through the winter. The glass had come from south Essos, and Sansa had planted the first of the seeds herself.

She stumbled through the snow to the last remaining garden. The sunlight struck the glass and threw out a rainbow across the snow. Sansa's tears fell, streaking down to her scarf, and she let out a soft choking sob, and Lawrence suddenly lay a hand on her shoulder, the steel in his glove shining. She looked over at him and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"You can rebuild them again, your Grace," he said, although he kept his eyes lowered. He wasn't supposed to speak to her unless she spoke to him first, but Sansa didn't care.

"The glass," she whispered. "The glass was so hard to get the first time, so expensive --" And now it lay in shards across the snow, sparking, like flakes of the sun had fallen down to the earth.  Sansa took a deep breath. "I imagine they'll destroy this one after we leave."

"I don't know, your Grace."

Sansa pulled away from him and walked across the snow. She eased open the door to the remaining garden.  It was empty, but she could see that all the ripe fruits and vegetables had already been harvested for the evacuation, and there were a handful of gaps in the green, dark holes of black earth where the plant had been pulled out by the roots. One of her advisors was behind that, no doubt. Terric, probably. He would think to bring gifts to Lord Gavin and Lord Monte. Hopefully the plants could withstand the cold.

Sansa walked along the rows of plants, breathing in the scent of living things. Lawrence trailed behind her at a respectable distance, and she was so disoriented from the loss of her gardens that she forgot he was there. She'd spent so much time here, kneeling in the soil, pulling up weeds, plucking ripe fruits from their vines. She would come back to the castle proper with her forearms streaked with dirt, her fingernails dirty, and she never minded. It would have bothered her so much as a girl, but this had been a different kind of dirtiness. She was doing it for Winterfell. For the North.

And now everything she worked for was gone.

Sansa wanted to take a piece of the garden with her. No purely ornamental flowers grew in the glass gardens, of course -- they would only take up space. But flowers still blossomed in abundance, and Sansa wandered from plant to plant, collecting them in a bouquet that she could barely hold. She had gathered up three separate flowers when she realized, with a jolt, that she was gathering up the ingredients for moon tea. Heat rushed into cheeks, and she gave a quick glance backwards over her shoulder at Lawrence, who looked bored.

Of course he didn't know what she was doing. Moon tea was women's knowledge, and the ingredients had all been planted by women, scattered about the garden at odd intervals, a secret that lay out in the open. One of the smallfolk had told Sansa about it, a few months after Harry had died. Rosalee, that had been her name, and she used to accompany Sansa to the gardens to help her work. "You're grieving now," she had said, leading Sansa through the paths, "and there are things to help with grief. But a queen can't be getting pregnant without a husband."

Sansa had been mildly scandalized at the time, but not enough to stop Rosalee from showing her how to brew the tea. She'd never actually used it, of course. There was no one she wanted to take as lover, not until --

Sansa blushed again, but she drifted over to the burst of starflower growing in the corner and plucked two slender stalks. She could press the flowers in one of her trunks during the journey south; the tea brewed just as well with dried flowers as it did with fresh.

_Do you really think you'll need it? Do you really want to -- with him?_

_Do you think he wants to with you?_

Sansa wasn't sure. Maybe she wouldn't brew the tea at all, just press the flowers and keep them as a memory of the gardens, as she intended.

Off in the distance, the bells started to ring.

The sound sent a shock through Sansa's system, but the sun was still shining bright, and Sansa knew the bells weren't ringing for battle, but for departure.  She tucked the bouquet into the belt of her dress and turned to Lawrence, who watched her with that calm implacability all sworn shields possessed when they were working.

She tried to smile at him, but her face seemed to have frozen into an expression of sadness. "The bells are ringing," she said.

"Yes, your Grace."

Sansa looked away from him, at the lush greenery of the gardens. That greenery was going to die in her absence, turn brown and shrunken and fall across the frozen soil.  She just hoped nothing else died.

"It's time to go," she said, and she left the gardens, she left Winterfell, she left home once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has read and commented (and kudos'd!) so far. I'm glad you're enjoying the story!


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